


End of the Line

by miss_tatiana



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Assassin AU, Brotzly - Freeform, Disabled Character, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, TONS of cia, Trans Character, also lots of blood and crying and everyone's very in love, amanda is way cleverer than she gets credit for, faranda, in fact the cia is The Villain, just... sort of normal stuff, no sci-fi au, similar plot minus the sci fi stuff but some things are different, sort of, the rowdy 3 and bart and dirk went through blackwing together, theres a ton of angst, todd has pararibulitis from the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:39:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9852188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_tatiana/pseuds/miss_tatiana
Summary: He had a bracelet around his wrist, that Amanda had tied there when they were older than kids, but younger than they were now. He had an earring in one ear, something he never pictured himself with. It was small and shiny and served multiple purposes and god, why was blood so warm? It should be cold, death was cold, why couldn’t blood be cold? There was a gun to his forehead, and he held his arms out on both sides and tried to make himself as best a shield he could.-Dirk Gently, minus the sci-fi elements. A lot of assassins and agents and CIA-ish stuff. I thought it would be fun to do something where the government was the main evil, and it turned into this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so i have no idea what i'm doing i just *clenches fist* love this show so much and i apologize for the train wreck that's this fic

There were no lights, just a sort of vague presence of the ability to see, painfully clearly, what was in front of him. The corridor was tight and very dark, and abandoned except for them. There was no one to save him, and even if someone showed up they wouldn’t be on his side. Not in this place. 

He had a bracelet around his wrist, that Amanda had tied there when they were older than kids, but younger than they were now. It was so easy to remember. It hadn’t even been a real bracelet, it was just a striped piece of string that she’d liked, and he asked if she wanted him to put it on her and she said she’d rather him have it. It wasn’t even anything big, it was just a shitty piece of string, and she’d still said that, so he let her wrap it around his wrist and he hadn’t taken it off since. He had an earring in one ear, something he never pictured himself with. It was small and shiny and served multiple purposes and god, why was blood so warm? It should be cold, death was cold, why couldn’t blood be cold? It soaked his pant leg from the thigh down, and there was more on his shoulder but at least that was his. He wished it could all be his. Trying to yank himself out of the situation by focusing on what he was wearing hadn’t worked, it hadn’t even helped. There was a gun to his forehead, and he held his arms out on both sides and tried to make himself as best a shield he could. 

“Get on the floor, Brotzman,” said a voice, and the gun gave him a nudge. 

“No,” he screamed, louder than he could afford to. His voice was raw and he was frightened out of his mind. Adrenaline had replaced everything else throughout his body.

“Todd…” said another voice, coming from behind him instead of in front. 

“No, don’t!” he yelled, not looking back. He closed his eyes. He was panicking, breathing too fast, muscles tensed, and who wouldn’t be? It was a panic-worthy situation.

“I have the jurisdiction to shoot you,” said the in front voice. “I want to shoot you. So get out of the way before you get killed. You have a sister to take care of.”

A tear fell down his cheek. There was too much happening at once, and he wasn’t made for government facilities, not at all, but here he was, and he couldn’t move. “Stay back,” he yelled, and by this time yelling hurt, but he couldn’t seem to do anything else. “Stay back!”

“Todd, I’m dead anyways! Can’t you just let go?” the behind voice pleaded, reaching a volume almost matching his.

“No! No! I can fix it!” he promised, flinching as blood dripped off his arm and onto the floor. It was so dark in the corridor, and so lonely. The gun was pressed harder against his forehead. He couldn’t fix anything. It was too far out of his control, too much had happened already to try and go back. To even try and survive the next few minutes. He’d try, he’d fight, but he’d lose. 

“I’m counting to three,” the in front voice said sharply, “then you’re dead.”

“Stop,” he shouted. “Stop, you can’t-” But they could. The entire government was against him, and they could do whatever the hell they wanted. 

“Move!” The gun was against him hard enough to hurt. 

“No!” he screamed, shutting his eyes as tight as he could. He tried to picture Amanda. 

“One.”

“Todd, please, please please please-”

“Two.”

“Todd,” sobbed the behind voice, sounding furious.

“Three.”

Todd couldn’t find Amanda in his mind. He couldn’t find anything. He searched for something, a worthy last thought, and it was like grasping at thin air. 

The gunshot slashed through the corridor.

* * *

**Two months earlier**

Todd was drowning. The room was only about three by two feet, and the walls were concrete. There was no door, why was there no goddamn door? How the fuck could people build a room without a door? The water was rising quickly, and it was just above his nose now. He tipped his head back, took one last breath.  _ Get yourself out of this _ , he told himself, and he felt along the walls, trying to find a crack or something, anything. He could see clearly, and even though the water stung his eyes he kept them open anyways. The rough concrete ripped at his palms, and trails of blood floated through the room. Box. Whatever it was. He had to calm down. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t even take a breath and his lungs were aching. He let out the air he’d gotten, thinking it might help the burning in his chest. He watched the bubbles float up, out of his nose and to a surface now far beyond reach. His vision started to crackle at the edges, a dark static creeping in.  _ You need a breath, you’re gonna die _ , his brain said, and he knew that taking a breath of water would kill him but he did it anyways, instantly choking on it. Cold liquid filled up his lungs and he threw a fist against the wall. 

The curtains bounced out with the impact, steam rising to the ceiling. 

“Hey, Todd, you okay?” asked a woman, walking into the bathroom slowly. “I heard some stuff, do you need- Todd?” She paused and listened for a second, then yanked back the curtain. “Shit! Hang on, just- just hang on-” She ran over to the cabinet and yanked out a pill bottle, fumbling with the child proof cap. She dumped a few of the pills out into her hand, knelt down next to the bathtub, and shoved them into her brother’s mouth. She kept her hand there for a while to make sure he swallowed them. 

Todd saw the concrete melt away and he took a deep breath, coughing. There was still water, but it was just a little bit from the shower head, and he watched Amanda lean over and turn it off. He was sitting in the bathtub.

“Okay?” asked Amanda, snapping her fingers in front of him. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Todd shivered. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You’re gonna be late for work.” Amanda patted his head and wiped her hand off on her jeans as she stood up and walked out of the room. 

In any other situation, her clipped replies and sudden departure would have seemed wrong, or insensitive. In their situation, however, she’d done this for him more times than she could count, and him for her, and it was almost commonplace. Plus, Amanda’s love was in clipped replies and sudden departures. She was a closed off person, but she cared about him.

Todd leaned against the side of the tub, dragging a hand down his face. He hadn’t had an attack in almost a month, he’d thought that maybe the meds were doing something. He knew they weren’t preventative, but a guy could hope. It was shitty that Amanda had to see him like that, though. He was the one who looked after her, not vice versa. She shouldn’t have to take care of her older brother. He stepped out of the tub when he felt like he could, and grabbed a towel off the wall. What a shitty start to a shitty day. 

Todd stood behind the desk at the Perryman and gave people room cards. He tried to smile when they thanked him, and not all of them did. It’d be a very long day, they always were. Give people cards, tell them about the hotel, tell them about discounts, show them around. It got old after his first week on the job, and he’d been doing it for two years. When Amanda had moved in with him, about six months ago, this had gotten both harder and easier. On one hand, he wouldn’t have to drive out to visit her, and she could help with keeping the apartment clean, but on the other hand, even with him, she wasn’t ready to go outside yet. She’d take short walks, down the street, around the block. Nearly none of them ended well. She couldn’t get a job, not one she could keep, and even with her moved in he couldn’t always make sure she was alright. 

“Hi, welcome to Perryman Grand,” Todd recited as a man approached the desk. Sometimes it was tricky to pull his mind out of his thoughts and into a conversation, and he had a suspicion it was something to do with the pararibulitis. His mental transitions were basically fried. 

“Uh, hey,” said the guy. “We- I- well, she- my girlfriend called ahead and reserved a room for three days?” He smiled. It was a very nice smile. 

“Yeah, sure,” Todd said, pulling the call book out from under the desk. “Name?”

“Curlish? Do you need a first name? Her last name’s pretty uncommon, I mean, how often do you-”

“First name would be nice,” Todd interrupted. Every couple of weeks, there was one of these guys. Someone head over heels for their partner, and not scared to talk about it. They thought it was cute, probably. He let out a sigh, flipping back to yesterday’s calls. He usually avoided those guys as ardently as he could.

“Bart. Her name’s Bart.” The guy grinned. “You know we’re moving up here?”

Todd gritted his teeth and pictured himself getting fired, which forced him to look up and try to smile. “Oh?”

“Yeah, we just rented the room for a couple of days, so we have a place to stay while all our furniture gets here.” The guy nodded. “We’re moving up from Redding, it was such a drive. I don’t drive, I’m bad at doing highways. If we’re going down a woodsy road, I can do it, but long trips? No way. So Bart’s driving us up, right? And-”

“I found your reservation, sir.” Todd smiled wider, willing himself to stay pleasant. 

“Great!”

“Room three forty-four, would you like me to take you up?” Todd asked, making a mark in the book before flipping it closed and tucking it away. 

“Yes, please.” The guy waited for Todd to get around the desk and then followed him to the elevator. “I’m Ken, by the way.”

“Todd,” said Todd. He pressed the button and watched the doors slide shut. 

Ken nodded again. After a few moments of being silent, he cracked a smile. “Do you have any home decor recommendations? Because we have all the necessities up from my old place, but-” he leaned in closer and dropped his voice to a stage whisper, as if his girlfriend was in the elevator with them. “-Bart doesn’t know the first thing about how to spruce up an apartment.” He laughed. “So that’s falling to me.”

“I don’t,” Todd muttered, shaking his head. “I don’t have any-” This was painful to say. “-home decor recommendations.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. You should see my apartment.” Todd rolled his eyes. 

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open.

“Maybe I should! I mean, we don’t know anyone up here, making some friends would be ideal,” Ken said, following Todd out of the elevator and down the hall. 

Todd laughed, he couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t a nice laugh, it was a jesus fuck, I’m so tired, let me go home laugh. “Here’s your card. Call down to the desk if you want anything, need anything, or have any problems.”

“Okay! Thanks, Todd,” Ken said. He waved. 

Todd got back into the elevator, sighing. He just wanted to get back, check on Amanda, and go to sleep. He was heading back to the desk when he ran into the hotel manager. “Mr. Palacios.”

“Todd. Todd, Todd, Todd. You know, I was just thinking about you. I was thinking about how you got here late today for the second time this month,” said the manager. 

“I’m sorry, sir, I just-”  _ Just what? _ Todd shut himself up. He didn’t have an explanation ready, not one he was going to say out loud.

“Just like all the other times?” Mr. Palacios sighed. “It’s getting old, Todd.”

“I know, sir.” Todd looked down and scuffed the rug with his shoe. His phone rang.

Mr. Palacios raised his eyebrows.

Todd gritted his teeth. This was the worst time for something like this to happen. Just when he needed to make a good impression. 

“Are you going to get that, Todd?”

Todd waited as long as possible then walked quickly past the manager and to the desk. He pulled his phone out and held it to his ear. “This is a really bad time. This is the worst time ever. I-”

“Todd?”

Todd froze. That was Amanda’s something’s-happening voice. “Are-are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m okay.”

Todd felt cold, all of a sudden. Something in her tone said that she wasn’t, in fact, okay, but she was calm enough to lie about it. “What-”

“Never mind.”

“Amanda-

“Never mind, okay?”

Todd chewed on his bottom lip. “Tell me what happened.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Fine. I’ll be back at eight, take care of yourself.” Todd sighed. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Amanda repeated, and lowered her phone from her ear. She was standing in front of the window, the curtains pulled back, eyes focused, almost hypnotized by the van loitering right outside the entrance to the building. It was covered in graffiti, and even though it hadn’t moved since way before she called her brother, it hadn’t stopped running its gas. It was like whoever drove it was ready to make a quick getaway if needed, or simply liked the obnoxious noise. She didn’t quite know why she didn’t tell Todd about it. Her initial instinct was to call him, but as she watched it through the windowpane, she began to think of it as less threatening and more interesting. She didn’t want Todd to overreact and get scared, like he always did, and she sort of wanted to work this van out by herself. Something about it felt personal. She stared at it, and it revved its engines.

* * *

 

“It was lovely of you to come! Honestly I didn’t think you’d show, I mean, with your track record-” the man scoffed, smiling. “Have a seat.”

“Tell me what’s going on so I can kill you, Dirk,” said the woman, pulling out a chair and sitting. Dirk always did this, asked her to meet him in public places like this cafe. She hated it. She couldn’t watch every angle, sometimes she couldn’t even watch the door, and it was already stressing her out. 

“Aha, nope. No killing. Not yet, at least, and hopefully not ever, and not me, but-”

“Dirk.”

“Farah.”

“Why did you call me?” asked Farah, not sharing Dirk’s smile. “Stay on topic.”

“Multiple reasons, actually, both equally heebie-jeebie inducing,” said Dirk, leaning forwards over the table. “First, the Rowdy Three are back in town and rather angry, and that doesn’t bode well for anyone, especially not the people living in the complex they’re sitting outside of. Second…” His voice immediately lost nearly all its enthusiasm, its conspiratorial tones dropping. “Er, Farah, remember that thing, the thing I didn’t want to talk about ever?”

“Sure.” Farah nodded. Of course she remembered. It had chewed away at her ever since he’d brought it up, not knowing what it was giving her a bad feeling. 

“That thing is sort of becoming a relevant thing… again…” Dirk looked down at the table between them, pursing his lips. 

Farah leaned back in her chair, eyes flicking to the door. “You’re not going to tell me what it is.”

“Well, no, I don’t want to go crying in public, do I?” Dirk laughed in an angry, frustrated way. 

Farah bit her lip. “Dirk, it clearly concerns me-”

“Nope, no it doesn’t,” Dirk interjected quickly. 

“-because you brought me here to talk about it. So talk. Do you need my help?”

Dirk pushed his mouth onto one side of his face and huffed. “Well, a little bit. But I also want to keep you safe.”

Farah tried not to smile. Dirk was an idiot, but an idiot she was sort of emotionally invested in. “You do whatever you have to about your thing, okay? I’ll take care of the Three.”

“What? Farah, four against one. You could die.” Dirk looked knowingly over the table at her. 

“I didn’t say I was going to attack them,” Farah said under her breath, sparing another glance around the cafe. “I’m just going to check the situation and make sure everything’s under control.”

“Ah. Of course. Clever, clever.” Dirk smiled, reaching across the table as if to put his hand on hers but pulling it back before he could touch her, like he’d thought better of it. “Just shoot me a call when you figure out what they’re doing, that would be great.”

Farah nodded. “Dirk, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m always okay.” He grinned at her. 

“Yeah. Sure. Okay.” Farah gave him a little wave as she got up. “Stay safe.”

Dirk waved back and watched her leave. She still did that Farah thing of hers, that looking all around like people were watching her thing. Maybe she was right to. He took a deep breath and put a bill on the table before following her out. He hadn’t seen Farah in god knows how long, and she still seemed to not like being around him. Which was a normal thing, no one did, but with her it was different, because he’d spent time trying to get close to her. It admittedly hurt more than a little, but there were lots of bigger, scarier things on his mind, and he went to his car, which wasn’t really his, and got in. 

He leaned his head forwards against the steering wheel. There was a lot of him that wanted to run away. A terrible lot of him. Where he’d get off to he didn’t know, maybe across the sea to Japan, maybe down to Brazil. Somewhere far away and without a CIA. He thought about it, picturing his new life, in somewhere perfect, with a clean slate and safe people. He let out a sigh. As attractive as that was, he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave Farah all on her own, and he couldn’t leave until he faced…  _ You idiot,  _ he told himself.  _ Good luck trying to stand up to that. You can’t even think about it. _

He could taste things from back then, smell them, feel them. He would never be able to get rid of them, he’d never be able to shake them off. Memories of back then, back there, even if it was just for example the sensation of an electric shock and none of the visuals that went with it, would never leave. Those were the kinds of things he couldn’t fight off and couldn’t leave behind. At unrelated, completely normal, safe times something would snap in him and all of that would come flooding back. It was so stupid of him for trying to bring it up in the cafe. He wouldn’t be able to get it out of his head, not for a while, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take it. A confrontation was inevitable, but he would put it off for as long as he could.

Deep breath in, deep breath out, sit up straight. There. 

He turned the keys in the ignition and drove himself home.

* * *

 

In a cold facility two men sat side by side in fold out chairs, the kind that was surely below the budget of the place and didn’t fit in. It was debatable the chairs were specifically cheap and uncomfortable to make the men unhappy, or at least aware of the change in the air. They sat in front of a desk, and behind it stood a woman. She wasn’t especially tall, or especially broad, or any of the other things that usually suggested someone very, very frightening. But frightening she was, and more than that, she had power. She was intimidating, and she knew it. 

“Officers,” she said, her hands flat on the desk. “We’re taking Blackwing back.”

“You- you dumped the program years ago-” began the elder of the two men. 

“Not me. The guy before me. Now that I’m running things, I want it back, all of them. How many agents did you let go? Four?” the woman spat. 

“Five,” muttered the older man under his breath. 

“Five!” The woman shook her head. “Unbelieveable. You threw thousands of dollars out the window when you let them run off.”

The younger man looked over at his partner, who clenched his hands into fists. “I didn’t let them! You think I wanted them gone? They destroyed my operation, they destroyed me. I’ve never had full funding since, and if you think anyone has respected me since that went down-”

“This is your chance to earn their respect back. I can give you all the money you need to pull this off,” the woman said firmly. “But I’m not sparing any other agents until I know you’re on the right track. For now, until you bring one of them in, it’s just you and Friedkin.” 

Friedkin raised a hand in a sharp, military fashion, his eyes on the desk instead of the woman. “Sir- Ma’am-”

“General. Or officer.” The woman smiled coldly.

“General, are we bringing them in… like, alive? Or can we take stronger measures?” 

The older man, Riggins, looked over at his companion in horror. “Of course we’re bringing them in alive, there’s no way-”

“You’re bringing in four of them alive. I enlisted the only Blackwing agent we have left, the one that didn’t run away, to deal with the last of the five,” the woman explained. 

“So… so we’re not shooting anybody?” asked Friedkin, hand still raised. 

“Shoot away to your heart’s content, Corporal. You just can’t kill anybody. Understood?”

“Yes, General.” Friedkin dropped his hand. 

Riggins shook his head. “We can’t shoot them. You don’t know them like I know them. They’re too volatile, too fragile. We can’t hurt them.”

“What’s that? Blatant emotional involvement?” The woman shook her head. “Colonel, please. You may think you cared for them like an uncle or a father would, but I can assure you they do not think the same. They will hate you and fear you as they should.”

“With all due respect, General, you don’t know that,” Riggins said quietly, looking down. 

“Fine. You’ll see for yourself soon. I’ll be right.” The woman blinked slowly, like she was sick of wasting her time, which she was. “Use any force necessary, just don’t kill them. Now go.”

The two men stood sharply, years of government training guiding all their movements. Friedkin saluted the General, and Riggins nodded to her, and they left. 

“You will not shoot any of them, understood?” Riggins muttered to Friedkin as they walked down the corridor, heading to the garage. 

“But the General-”

“You’re assigned to me, not to the General.” Riggins sounded guilty.

“Is that undermining authority, sir?” Friedkin strode along quickly, walk clipped. 

“No, no,” Riggins sighed. “If we want them to still function as agents, we need to keep them safe and unharmed. The General wasn’t around when I started Blackwing, she just doesn’t know enough.”

Friedkin looked down at the ground for a few strides, then back up. “Sir, is this about that picture in your pocket?”

Riggins’ hand flew to his breast pocket. “How did you know about that?”

“I do your laundry sometimes, you know how you ask me to do that? And it was… um, I always check the pockets for stuff like that, so they don’t get ruined in the washing machine, so I took it out. I didn’t even mean to look, sir, it was just, like, there, and I saw it,” Friedkin explained. “I put it right back in when your uniform was done.”

“Never touch my uniform again.”

“But you told me to-”

“I don’t care what I told you!” roared Riggins. They had stopped walking, and were face to face in the corridor. “Never do it again!”

Friedkin looked down, straightening his stance. “Yes, sir. But that picture- he’s just a kid-”

“Drop it, Corporal. I’m saying no shooting because I want to keep our agents functional. Not because of the picture. Now come on.” Riggins took off down the corridor, faster than before. 

Friedkin stared after him for a few seconds, then ran to catch up. “Yes, sir.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who took interest in this ily!

A week had passed since Todd got that strange call from Amanda. His mind had gone through other things, but ultimately circled back to that, to what she meant by it, to what she was lying about. He hadn’t brought it up since, in fear of scaring her. She was difficult to read, and even having lived with her almost his whole life he wasn’t really sure where he stood with her. He was going to talk to her tonight, though. He’d figure out what was going on. 

He parked his car across the street from the apartment building and headed inside. “Amanda? I’m back from work, want to unlock the door?”

When she had moved in, she begged him not to get another key for her. He wondered for a couple of weeks why she didn’t want one, and eventually she told him it was just another way for someone to get in. Slowly, she claimed ownership over the only key, and so he had to wait for her to let him in at the end of the day. It was inconvenient, but if it made her feel safer he’d go with it. 

“Hey Todd,” Amanda said through the door, and a moment later with a click of the deadbolt, she pushed it open. “Welcome home. How was work?”

“It was work.” Todd set his hat down on the couch. 

“You realize how cliche it is to say that, right?” Amanda laughed. “It’s like, ‘I’m middle aged! I’m depressed! I hate my job!’”

“I am depressed, and I do hate my job.” Todd smiled at her. “What do you want for dinner?”

Amanda shrugged. “Whatever you want. But pasta would be nice.”

“Do we even have pasta?” Todd pulled off his jacket. 

“Yeah, right in the cupboard,” Amanda said, shuffling over into the nook that was the kitchen. “See?” She set the package on the counter. 

Todd was about to ask her to get some water going when there was a knock on the door. He turned to his sister. “Did you invite Mom and Dad over? Damn it, Amanda, give me a warning next time, the house looks like-”

“I didn’t invite anyone over,” Amanda growled. “Get the door, and don’t assume I do stupid things just because I have nothing else to do.”

Todd bit back a response, trying to back out of their arguing rut they’d had since they were kids. He flicked the deadbolt. “Um, hi.”

“Hi. I’m here about the van.” The man stepped into the apartment. 

“The what? No, no, get out. Who are you?” Todd spluttered. 

“Oh, sorry.” The man went back out and stood by the door. “Didn’t mean to intrude. Now. I’m here about the van.”

“What van?” Todd squinted at him.

“The-” The man’s eyes widened. “Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t seen the van. It practically lives outside your house! I mean, come on-” He looked down at Todd’s nameplate, pinned to his shirt. “Come on, Todd. I can hear it right now! Listen.”

There was a faint but distinct rumbling, like mechanical thunder, or, more accurately, like an enormous engine that was intent on personally harming the environment. 

Todd went over to the window and looked down. “Nothing’s there.”

“I’m sure they’re right around the corner,” laughed the man. 

“Okay. Okay, fine. People can park wherever the hell they want. Why should we care?” Todd asked. “Hey! Stay out!”

The man had drifted back into the apartment and was peering out the window over Todd’s shoulder. He scurried back to the doorframe. 

“Who’s in that van?” asked Amanda quietly, talking for the first time since the man arrived. “You know them, right?”

Todd spun around and glared at her. “You knew about the van?”

“They’re here all day, Todd,” she said pointedly. 

“They’re never here when I’m home,” Todd argued. 

“The people in the van,” the man shouted over them, and waited to continue speaking until they had stopped arguing. He smiled and dropped his voice to a normal volume. “-are very bad and scary. Not bad to me or maybe even to you or you personally, but to other people, and to inanimate objects. They’re very nasty. I’m trying to get them away. So that’s that.”

Todd looked back at Amanda. “You were calling about the van, weren’t you?”

“Maybe.” Amanda shrugged. 

“Why did you lie to me?” asked Todd, more quietly.

“Please please please don’t fight,” the man said, putting on a pained smile. He looked nervous. “Be a nice, happy couple.”

“Ew!” Amanda shuddered. 

Todd sighed, trying to gather the energy he needed to keep talking. “She’s my sister, asshole. Who are you?”

“I’m a detective!” The man smiled. “Hi, my name is Dirk, and I think you guys are in trouble.” He said it like the introduction to a presentation, or a speech. Like an everyday thing. 

“I’m Amanda,” Amanda said. “So- you know the van guys?”

Dirk looked off to the side, as if guilty. “Maybe a little bit.”

“Cool.” She nodded. 

“No! Not cool! Dirk, are they actually dangerous?” Todd was reaching for his jacket again.

Dirk moved his hands in teeter totter fashion. “I’d say yes. I’m just warning you about them. I’m going to go out and yell at them and see if they go away, but if you hear someone - me - getting mauled, please bring me bandaids after they leave.” He waved, turned, and started to head down the stairs. 

“Wait, I’m coming!” Todd yelled after him. He pulled on his jacket. “Amanda, everything’s gonna be okay.”

“I know.”

“Don’t follow me out.”

“I know,” she repeated, louder this time, and she sounded angry. 

Todd reached out and touched her shoulder before he ran down the stairs and out the door. “The police are tracking these guys?” he asked, catching up with Dirk. 

“No, the police don’t even know about them,” Dirk replied casually, keeping his eyes on the street corner. 

Todd looked up at him, getting a weird feeling. “Then who sent-”

“Shhh! Look! There’s the van!” Dirk ran ahead, pointing around the corner and down that street, to where the behemoth was parked. 

“Shit,” muttered Todd under his breath, following Dirk right around to the front of the van. “What? What the hell are you doing? If these guys are violent or whatever then we should stay back!”

Dirk shrugged at him, then knocked on the driver side window. 

Todd’s mouth fell open, fear gripping his chest. “What did you do? What the fuck did you do?” he whispered. 

The window rolled down slowly. The man inside draped his arm out and over the door, leaning into the sun. “Greetings, little brother.”

“Martin,” Dirk laughed. “Thank god you’re not rampaging right now.”

“Why are you here?” asked Martin, rubbing his free hand over his beard. 

“Well, why are you here?” countered Dirk, smile slowly fading. 

“Who’s this guy?” Martin demanded, gesturing vaguely at Todd. 

“Do you still have all the boys?” Dirk tried to peek into the van and see if there was anyone else inside. 

“Would you stop it? Both of you?” Todd asked. “Why are you outside my apartment, what do you want?”

Martin looked over at him, squinting one eye. “We got a tip something would go down here. We’re getting ready.”

“Here?” Todd scoffed, trying to fight off the sinking, cold feeling catching a hold of him. “Nothing ever happens here.”

“We got coordinates. Coordinates never lie,” said Martin. “And what brought you here, little brother? Coordinates too?”

“No.” Todd pursed his lips. “Things are coming back, Martin. Bad things, er, Blackwing things.” His voice faltered and faded, and he looked at the road beneath his feet. 

Martin heaved a sigh. “You want help, don’t you?” He shook his head. “We ain’t gonna help you, Icarus. I got you out ‘cause it was the decent thing to do, but that’s all done through. Let’s just go our separate ways. I’m not getting my boys caught up in your mess. Blackwing’s gonna hold onto you a lot tighter than onto us, and we want to keep it that way.”

“I don’t need any help,” Dirk said, each word standing on its own, like he was having trouble conjuring them. “I was wondering if you needed any help, actually.” His cheery persona from earlier had completely dropped, and he seemed vulnerable and set off balance.

“We don’t. Not from you.”

“But I know Blackwing like nobody does! They’ll be after all of us,” Dirk reasoned with more than a hint of desperation.

“Stop trying to help people, little brother,” Martin said, shrugging. “You never help. You never help. You just make things goddamn worse is what you do. When you help, you hurt.” The window started to roll up again. “Thanks for the tip off on Blackwing.” With that, Martin was sealed in once again, and the engines revved viciously. 

Dirk punched the side of the van as it pulled away, instantly retracting his hand to his chest and wincing. 

Todd, standing several feet back, was feeling shellshocked. Scared and shellshocked. He watched the van move slowly and with many convulsions down the road and away from his house. After a long time, he cleared his throat. “If you’re not from the police, then who are you?”

“I’m just- I’m just Dirk, Dirk Gently, I’m a detective,” Dirk sighed, wiping his face with his hands. 

“Who sent you?”

“I sent myself, alright?” Dirk turned around and glared at him. 

Todd held up his hands in surrender. “Alright. Are you okay?” He didn’t even know if he really cared, it just seemed the right thing to say, and he was sort of on autopilot.

“No, I’m bloody not okay, okay?” 

“Stop asking me to validate everything you say, it’s weird,” Todd implored, feeling the residual fear seep out of him and getting himself back. “There’s so much I don’t understand, can we just get back the apartment? I’ll make dinner, and you can explain stuff.”

“You just invited me over,” Dirk stated, raising an eyebrow. “No one’s ever done that before.”

Todd pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a breath. “Alright. Just- come on.”

They started to go back to the intersection with Todd’s street when a woman came hurdling around the corner, running as fast as she could. 

Todd yelped, jumping back out of the way. 

The woman skidded to a halt. “Dirk?”

“Farah!” Now Dirk was smiling again. “What a crazy coincidence!”

“It’s not a coincidence,” Farah said, breathing hard. “It’s you being a self absorbed- Dirk, we made a deal. I’ll take care of the Three, you’ll take care of Blackwing. What happened to that?”

Dirk flinched. “Well, long story-”

“No. No, I don’t want to hear it. You think you can take care of everything on your own, huh? I get it.” Farah leaned forwards, holding herself up with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. “I’m done with you, Dirk. You blew my chances at taking them out.”

“Farah, I came after them because I was scared of actually thinking about Blackwing,” Dirk admitted, bending down to be at eye level with her. “I had two problems and I thought, why not just fix the lesser one? Right?”

“You didn’t fix it,” Farah said. 

“But the logic was still solid.”

“No, Dirk, no it wasn’t. Who's this?”

Todd raised a hand. “I’m-I’m Todd Brotzman, I live across the street.”

“Okay.” Farah straightened up and started to walk away. 

Dirk bit his lip. “I’m over at Todd’s for dinner, do you want to come?”

“No. Call me later, or whatever.” Farah rounded the corner sharply and disappeared from sight. 

“Before you ask,” Dirk said dejectedly. “That was Farah. She’s my- well, not my friend, maybe my acquaintance, but that sounds way too old fashioned. We know each other and she doesn’t like me. She’s angry with me right now.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Todd started to walk slowly across the road back to the apartment, Dirk in tow, half suspecting something else confusing and loud to happen and detain them further. “Just for future reference, Dirk? Don’t ever invite somebody over to my house.”

“Yep. Understood. My bad.”

“I’ve known you for a half an hour.”

“I said it was my bad! Happy?”

Todd looked up at Dirk as they reached the door, eyes caught on his smile. It was a foreign feeling, bouncing a playful argument back and forth with someone. He hadn’t done it in far too long. He hadn’t made a friend in far too long. That thought filled his head before he could stomp it out. “No. I’m not happy. I’m never happy.”

“Well, you’re grinning like crazy right now, so I think that might be a bit of a lie,” Dirk said, leading the way up the stairs. “Can you fit a cracker between your top teeth?”

Todd closed his mouth quickly, and knocked on the apartment door. 

“I was just wondering, and I didn’t mean it like it’s a bad thing.” Dirk shifted his weight from foot to foot. “It would be a cool thing. And you have very cool teeth.”

Amanda opened the door. “Dirk! How did it go?”

“Oh, you remember my name,” Dirk exclaimed, stepping in and patting her shoulder. “I love when people do that. It went really really badly, but we tried our best and that’s what matters.”

Todd closed and locked the door behind them. “So you’re not going to check if your own brother’s alright?”

“I can see that you’re fine, idiot.” Amanda smiled at him. “And Dirk’s way more interesting. Are we still making pasta?”

“Yes, and I’m staying for dinner,” Dirk answered promptly, sitting down at the table. 

“Oh my god, did Todd actually invite you?” Amanda plopped herself down across from him. 

“He did, is that out of the ordinary?” Dirk laced his fingers together and stuck them under his chin, his smiled wide and genuine, the stress and whatever else it was from the van melting away. 

“No,” Todd said. “I have people over all the time.”

Amanda twisted around in her chair to laugh at him. “Go make pasta, Todd, the grown ups are talking.”

Todd did what she told him, making his way around the counter into the kitchen space and putting water on to boil. He watched Amanda talk to this totally weird, wacked out, bizarre guy like she’d known him forever, and even though he told himself he should be jealous, it just made him feel warm and happy. She never got to talk to other people, and he wondered how badly she needed that. Dirk was a total stranger. He shouldn’t fit in with them as well as he did. It was almost unsettling how normal it felt, amidst all the strange things that had been happening. There was nothing to bother them, no van for now, no whatever the hell Blackwing was, no pararibulitis. And even if this guy was a total stranger, and even if this eye of the storm shit would only last one dinnertime, it was still really nice.

* * *

 

“Hey, I’m going out tonight,” said Bart, ripping open one of the few packing boxes that had arrived already. 

Ken walked through the empty apartment, finding her in what would soon be the kitchen. “Bart, I was thinking about this earlier. We just moved. Why don’t you get a new job? A normal nine to five, you know? Just something you don’t need to be out at night for.”

“But we moved here for my job. Not so I could find a new one.” Bart stood up and looked over at him. “My contract with the newspaper will pay way better than the one down in Redding.”

Ken sighed. “I know, and that’s great! But I work during the day, and if you keep getting called out at night, we won’t have any time together.”

“Ken. We’re together right now.” Bart shrugged. “I like my job.”

Ken knelt down and started pulling things out of the box. This was one of the dishes-and-cutlery ones, that was why Bart was in the kitchen. “Which is great. I love that you like your job. Just forget I said anything, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Bart joined him, sitting on the floor. “Hey, here’s your mug.” She lifted it from its newspaper wrapping and grinned. 

They talked as they unpacked the box, figuring out which cabinet to fill with what, and throwing all the protective newspaper casings into a pile in the corner. Eventually, they brought another box in and started that one too. The sun sunk, they could see it go down through all of their many windows, watching it disappear below a new city horizon. They chatted the whole time, about trivial things, stuff they wanted to do in Seattle, how Ken needed new shirts. 

Bart’s mind was on something entirely different, though. Her job, the one she told Ken she had, was actually a hobby from her childhood, and it was a stretch to call it that. Photography had never really been her passion, but moreover an escape from all that was going on around her and all that she had to do. It was encouraged, people back then wanting her to lead a more normal life, but she hadn’t kept it up, and it definitely wasn’t her real job. To say she worked for the government also wasn’t exactly right. They didn’t pay her, or anything, not beyond what she needed to maintain a seemingly regular life, but they did tell her what to do, and who to do it to. She hadn’t been in direct contact with her handling officer since before they started to move, but her orders were etched into her mind. 

Her target this time was different. Everything else was the same but the target- he wasn’t a run of the mill target at all. She hadn’t seen him in years, in over a decade, really, but what she did remember of him might make it hard for her to follow orders this time. She’d complete her assignment, of course she would, she always did, but it might take longer than usual. She might be picturing a photo she took back then, when they gave her a more comfortable blanket after seeing her interest in the camera, glad to provide her with a hobby. 

He was standing outside with his back against the huge fence that surrounded the only grass they were able to walk through without leaving the facility. He had on simple clothes, summer attire, just a tank top and a pair of shorts. They had both been eleven then, her and him. She had been ordered to take the picture, but nicely, with a pat on the head and a smile. So she had grabbed him and dragged him to the fence, laughing with him and pushing him back when he shoved her. She’d set up her camera shots like she’d set up all her shots, putting the center of her vision over the person’s head. This photo, though, hadn’t lined up perfectly like that. He’d moved at the last minute, still smiling, but off center and a little bit blurry. That was the picture that stuck with her until he left, despite it being ripped from her hand the moment it was developed and stuck into a breast pocket, to stay there presumably forever. 

She heaved a sigh. She was sure she wouldn’t regret killing him, but thinking about it was a bit difficult. 

“I’ll order takeout, okay? What do you feel like?” Ken was asking, standing and walking over to the pile of pamphlets they’d picked up. 

Bart pulled herself out of her thoughts. “I don’t know. Whatever. I just feel like food, you know?”

“You’re hopeless. You’re totally hopeless!” Ken smiled, shaking his head and pulling his phone out of his pocket. “You like Chinese, how about that?”

“Yeah, sure,” agreed Bart. She stood up and stretched. The kitchen looked nice. It looked really nice. Things weren’t in their places from the old apartment, they’d decided to switch things up, and while she thought at first that it would stress her out, it was actually a relief. To know that this was a completely new city, a completely new house, with a completely new cutlery arrangement, allowed for seemingly new possibilities in life. Not that she’d go for any of them, it was just a nice feeling. 

Their food arrived and Ken insisted they eat it on plates and in bowls instead of from the boxed just because they had dishes now, and they should use them. So they spread out four napkins on the floor like a picnic blanket and ate like that. 

“I can’t wait until we’re fully moved in here,” Ken said. “The hotel is pretty, but we’re gonna have our own house, I mean, come on.”

“We had our own house in Redding.”

“Yeah, but you know what I-”

“I know what you mean, yeah,” Bart interrupted, looking over at him and smiling. 

Ken reached over and pushed her shoulder with two fingers. “Where are you going tonight?”

“To some orchard, I don’t know,” Bart lied. “It’s privately owned, the paper had to get special permission or something.”

“You know where it is, though, right?” Ken looked sort of worried. “You’re not going to get lost?”

Bart laughed. “When have I ever got lost?”

“Okay, that’s a fair point. Do you need me to drop you off anywhere?” Ken started piling up empty dishes on one corner of the napkin blanket. 

“Uh, how about I drop you off at the hotel? I’m not about to take a taxi on the way back,” said Bart. She folded up the napkins once they were free of dishes and threw them in a pile up onto the counter. 

“You love the car, don’t you,” Ken murmured, lifting the dishes into the sink. 

“Yeah.” She laid back on the floor, letting the chill that resided there creep through her thin shirt and into her shoulders. 

Ken started doing dishes, and the familiar clinks and the sound of running water filled the room. “This makes it feel like home,” he remarked. “Doing chores.” He laughed, and it harmonized with the noises of the city outside. 

An hour later, he was waving to her through the window of the car, standing at the entrance to the hotel. “Be careful,” he called. 

“I’m going to photograph a tree, Ken,” Bart yelled back. “What is there to be careful about?”

“I love you!” Ken shouted. 

Bart grinned and revved the car, pulling out into the street and flying off through the city. She looked over at her camera bag, a heavy black thing that did indeed hold a camera, but also, under a false bottom, several types of guns. She wasn’t exactly going after the target tonight, but instead a wealthy old man who wasn’t relevant at all to her but could be used to draw her target out. He was pretending to be some sort of dumb police officer or something now. Of course he’d try to find out about this.

As she got closer to the house, she turned her headlights off, and at the start of the private drive, she ditched the car, pulling out all the heavy, useless camera equipment and assembling a rifle in the passenger seat before jumping out and closing the door as quietly as she could. She’d left the rifle strap somewhere, she realized, as she reached the gate. 

A lot of houses belonging to richer people also had a gate, she’d come to realize. This gate was about eight feet high and at the beginning of the driveway, which was in turn long and curvy and ending in the garage. The house lay beyond that, and lights shone through the windows.

Lacking the strap - and with fleeting thoughts of what Ken would think if he found it, if she’d been that stupid to leave it lying around somewhere - she shoved the rifle between her teeth and bit down as hard as she could, trying to get a firm grip on it before she flung herself at the fence. She wasn’t able to jump high enough on her own, and she ignored the burning of her arm muscles as she yanked herself, hand over hand, to the top. Then she got one foot hooked on the highest bar, took the gun with the hand she could afford to take off the bars of the fence, and with as much strength as she could muster heaved herself over. 

Eight feet, even when Bart was younger, was not a pleasant drop, and it wasn’t a pleasant drop now. She thudded to the ground and rolled up onto her knees, her shoulders stinging and her head rattled. She gave herself a few seconds, then jumped up and started to run towards the house. She’d landed not on the road, luckily, but in the grass next to it, and there she stayed as she made her way closer, hoping she was off the beaten path of the security cameras. 

She stopped about fifty meters away from the house and looked up at the windows, or, more particularly, at the man behind them, just a silhouette in the light. It didn’t really matter who he was, since he was just bait, but she could guess that he was the owner and only male occupant of the house, and the one she’d decided on shooting. She didn’t need to get any closer. 

The scope was on her eye, the crosshairs on his head, and then the bullet was through the window. She blinked when she fired. She always had and she’d been reprimanded about it and she never stopped. To this night, despite that, she never had missed a single shot, but she did miss watching the people go down. They really did fall in the blink of an eye. 

Now the window was unobscured by a figure, just a rectangle of orange light. There hadn’t been a scream or anything, so he must have been alone. She wondered if he lived with anyone, and where they were tonight, and she noted that she didn’t care. 

She left the property the same way she’d come in, and didn’t realize she’d forgotten to find the casing until she was almost at the hotel again, with no means of going back and picking it up. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! if you guys have questions or anything feel free to talk to me on tumblr @belkittykelly


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theres a bit of violence in this one, so watch out for that  
> thank you guys for taking such an interest in this !! im sorry for the slow burn but it's necessary

“One of my agents…” Riggins took a deep breath. Both of his hands were on the steering wheel of his military van and he stared out through the windshield at nothing. “One of my agents was activated without my consent last night, one of my agents committed a murder.”

“Isn’t that what they’re, like, here for? Committing murder and stuff?” Friedkin asked around his gum. 

“They’ve all killed before. All of them, but this-” Shaking his head, Riggins’ hand went to his pocket, where the picture lay flat against his chest. “I should give them orders, I raised them. I cared for them.”

Friedkin was quiet for a while, save for the snapping of his gum and his constant checking and rechecking of his guns. Then, still looking down at his pistol, he took a breath. “Sir- I’m not really someone to talk about this and, I mean, I saw the files but I skip over most of the words, sir. I looked at some of the numbers but since I didn’t read around them they didn’t even, like, make that much sense, but you know how when you’re looking at a book you just flip through and find the pictures? Do you do that?”

“No, Colonel, I don’t do that,” Riggins sighed, barely listening to Friedkin’s blabbering. A heavy weight sat on his mind, the creeping, cold sensation that his agents, the ones he’d trained to perfection and made who they were, were out of his control. 

“Um, well, I do, sir, and I sometimes do that with files, and I did that with the Blackbird ones, and-”

“Blackwing, Friedkin.”

Friedkin nodded, moving his gum to the other side of his mouth with his tongue. “Yeah, Blackwing, that’s what I said, so I only sort of looked at the pictures for that one and there were a lot and they were… the stuff- I don’t know, the- you know, it just didn’t look caring.”

Riggins spun around, craning his neck to glare at Friedkin where he sat in the back seat. “You weren’t there, you don’t know anything. I did what was best for them.”

“They just didn’t look that happy is all, sir,” Friedkin said sharply, in a military fashion. “And there was a lot of blood.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“Yes, sir.”

Riggins leaned back in his chair, letting out a heavy breath. Of course they had put the bad photos in the file. They couldn’t have just used the ones of the kids at the shooting range, or smiling, or out playing in the fenced yard. He hated the General, he wanted his old mission control boss back. She was twisting the situation to something completely wrong, and different than it had been, she had no idea what it was like, what the agents were like. She called them subjects, she’d said that to his face, and now he couldn’t get it out of his head. As much as he wanted to think the opposite, subjects seemed closer to what they were than anything else. “We’re just finding project Incubus. If whatever you want to say is about anything else, keep it to yourself.”

“Right, sir.” Friedkin nodded. “So how’s this going to go down, long range or short range?”

“You’re not shooting anyone!” Riggins let his forehead fall against the steering wheel. “I’ve been going over some local security footage and I have their daily timeline marked out. There are variations in their schedule, and I’ve only been able to find them over the past week give or take in this area, but this is solid information. They set up sort of a camp for themselves in a field in the middle of nowhere and drive up to Springsborough every day, I don’t know why. They sometimes stop in stores, destroy things. They haven’t made any unsanctioned kills, though, which is a miracle. And then at night they go back to their field.”

“So we intercept them and strike in Springsborough,” said Friedkin, reaching into his bag for his field visor. 

“No, so we find their camp and wait there for them to get back tonight.” Riggins looked at the clock built into the dashboard. “It’s pretty early, but I’d bet they’re already in the city.”

Friedkin shifted in his seat. “Sir, why not just find them now? There’s no problem with a confrontation.”

“You didn’t even read the file. We’re doing this my way,” said Riggins, throwing the van into drive and pulling away from the curb they were parked at. “We can see if they left anything important there, we could use it for leverage or just to get a better hold on who they are now.” He admitted it. He wanted to know them again, if he ever knew them in the first place. He wanted to see how they were doing. “And when they get back, we’ll be in their home, which is to our advantage.” Using manipulation tactics with the Blackwing agents had become second nature when it came to getting them to comply, but he still felt uncomfortable with it as a general rule. A topic that riled Incubus up was home, and to take that away would give them the upper hand. 

“Sir-”

“I’m not done, Friedkin.”

“Sir, buckle up, we’re going fifty miles an hour. Click it or ticket.”

Riggins jammed his belt into its buckle. “Don’t say another word for the rest of this drive.”

* * *

 

“Hey! Hi!” Someone banged on the door. 

“Todd?” Amanda knew she shouldn’t answer the door on her own, but she drifted towards it, hand outstretched. 

“Hang on a second,” he said, through the bathroom door, his voice muffled with a mouthful of toothpaste. “Just- hang on.”

Amanda didn’t hang on. She unlocked the deadbolt and looked into a familiar smile. “Hey again. What brings you back here?”

“An actual murder, it’s sort of awful actually,” said Dirk, stepping inside. “But it’s lovely to see you again!”

“You too,” Amanda said, smirking at him. “Todd’s fixing his hair or whatever, if you’re waiting for him.” She held her breath for a few seconds. “So, about this murder- what happened? Was it the van guys?”

“I don’t know.” Dirk touched her shoulder in a conspiratory way. “But I do know that someone died, and I want to know more.”

Amanda’s smirk widened, and she raised an eyebrow. So he was crazy, so what. He was still the most interesting thing that had probably ever happened to Springsborough. “Me too. Why are you here? I mean, ‘cause of the murder, but-”

“For your brother,” Dirk said firmly. “And here he is. Hi, Todd.”

Todd closed the bathroom door behind him and leaned back against it. “What the hell, Amanda?”

“What? I can open a door by myself, it’s not like the knob is going to shatter.” Amanda rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah, well, you could think does, okay?” Todd forced his eyes up to Dirk. “What happened?”

Dirk came over and fixed Todd’s tie. “You’re in the same clothes, do you ever change?”

“You’ve only seen me twice, so you have- you have absolutely no authority on this, number one, back off,” Todd said, squinting at him, “and number two, this is my uniform. I have to wear it.”

“Well, when you put it like that.” Dirk laughed, raising his eyebrows. 

“Listen- if something happened, just tell me. Are we in trouble? Did the van guys do something? Please tell me it has something to do with me, whatever it is,” Todd muttered, trying to keep his voice down. He knew Amanda was an adult, but there was something in him that forced him to try and shield her from things, even if she could take them, and this was one of those occurrences. He was talking like he was her parent, discussing something with a school teacher. “If you just came here to me for- for no reason at all, I’ll- I don’t know. What is it?”

“Well, it’s a murder.”

“A murder?” Todd repeated, eyes widening. “What the fuck- what- what does it- how am I involved?”

“Well, I don’t know yet, but I’m sure we’ll find out if we head to the house where it happened.” Dirk gestured to the door. 

“I have work,” breathed Todd, the only thing he could think up. “I literally have work, I’m going to be late.”

Dirk pushed a piece of Todd’s hair off his forehead. “Ask for a day off.”

“Stop touching me! And no, I can’t just do that.” Todd pushed past Dirk and went to the door, grabbing his jacket off the hook. 

“Then quit, it doesn’t sound like a fun job.” Dirk shrugged, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Plus, what kind of job makes you wear uniforms anymore? What kind of nineteen sixties-”

“I can’t quit. Get out.”

“Todd!” Amanda threw the newspaper from the table at him. “Don’t be an asshole!”

“No- Dirk, I don’t know you,” said Todd, picking the newspaper up off the ground and tossing it onto the couch. “I don’t know you, and you expect me to- I don’t even-” He sighed, leaning his head into his hands. 

“Please. I’d love it if you were to come.” Dirk pushed his mouth up into a sort of awkward smile and shrugged. 

Todd closed his eyes.  _ This is one of those chances _ , he told himself.  _ One of those chances that get flung at you and you need to just go for it even if it fucks shit up because it’ll pay off. And even if it doesn’t it’ll be something different, and god, that would be good.  _ “Fuck it.” He pulled his jacket on, then abruptly off again. “I need to change, I can’t look like this. Hang on.”

“Is, erm, is ‘fuck it’ a good thing?” asked Dirk quietly, peering over at Amanda as Todd ran out of the room. 

She was smiling slightly. “Yeah. He’s going with you. Dude, that’s so awesome.”

“You could come too,” Dirk offered. “I didn’t mean to make it exclusive like that.”

“That’s cool of you to ask, but nah.” Amanda looked down. “I can’t, and I’m not being like Todd and ‘ughh my job, whatever’ I just literally… can’t.”

Dirk nodded slowly, eyebrows furrowing. “Oh. Alright.”

They waited in silence - not an uncomfortable one but one nonetheless - until Todd got back. 

“Ready to go?” Dirk asked, eyes flicking back towards the door. 

Todd nodded. “Yeah. Amanda-”

“I know. Stay inside, stay safe.” Amanda rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “I’m learning German online, Todd. I’ll have something to keep me occupied. And look!” She pulled a handful of pills out of her back pocket. “I’m keeping them on me now, just in case.”

Todd smiled, but he looked worried. “That’s amazing, Amanda. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay. Bye.” She waved, just to make sure he didn’t keep talking. 

Dirk led the way out of the apartment and down onto the first floor. “You should wear normal clothes more often, they look great on you.”

“I wear them every day,” Todd said pointedly. “Things still happen even if you personally don’t see them.”

“I know that, I just…” Dirk shrugged, pulling his car door open. “Wait, you’re okay with me driving, right? I’ve never had anyone along like this before, what would you prefer?”

“You can drive,” answered Todd, getting into the passenger seat. “In case you end up dragging anyone else with you in the future, just don’t ask stuff like that. It’s- if I’m coming with you, I-” Todd sighed. “I trust you with the situation, and when you ask questions as trivial as that it throws stuff off, you don’t seem as cool.”

Dirk bit his lip, pushing the car into gear and taking off. “Well, for one, I’m not dragging you along, I asked politely and you-”

“You’re dragging me along,” Todd interrupted, smiling at Dirk. “I’m not saying I mind, I’m just stating the facts.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m dragging you along. I actually like how that sounds, it sounds… adventure-y,” Dirk said, making a turn. 

“Where are we going?” asked Todd, clinging to his seat. They were going far above the speed limit, and driving in the middle of the road. “Can we slow down?”

Dirk shook his head. “Todd, you don’t know the first thing about investigating. Time is of the essence, so no, we can’t slow down, and we’re going to the crime scene. It’s a mansion a bit outside of town. Very pretty, really.”

“Are we allowed to be there? Like, will the police yell at us? You said you weren’t with the police- who are you with, actually?” Todd tried to focus on the conversation and not how fast things were tearing by outside the car windows. 

“Ah. Remember when you invited me over, which by the way was very sweet of you, and I said I’d explain things, and then I didn’t but only because we were having fun?” Dirk took his eyes off the road for a second to look at Todd, swerving dangerously. 

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well, I was going to talk about that then, but I obviously didn’t, but we can’t talk about it now either because of the-” Dirk scoffed. “Well, because of the murder, of course. But if you ask again later we can have that chat.”

“Okay, fine.” Todd chanced a glance out the window. “Where did you learn to drive?”

Dirk started laughing. “Long story, really, and we’re almost where we need to be.”

They finally pulled up the long driveway through the open gate, getting out near the garage. 

“This house is huge,” Todd breathed, looking up at it. “There! The window’s shattered, that must have been- Dirk?” 

Dirk had run off down the lawn, continuously peering up at the window and then down at the ground as he went. 

Todd followed him, catching up to him halfway down the hill. “What are you doing?”

“Something happened here,” murmured Dirk, looking at the grass, wondering if he could really see those footprints or if he was making it up and reading too much into how grass naturally goes. There had to be something, some proof, just to let him know he wasn’t being paranoid, that they had really been here, that this was linked to everything.

“Yeah, a murder happened here,” Todd said. “Are you okay?”

“No, no, I mean-” Dirk knelt down in the grass, feeling around in it. “-something actually happened, someone was here, they-”

“You’re not making sense.” Todd looked up the hill, to where police cars were parked around the house. “Are they okay with us being here? We’re not going to get arrested or anything, right?”

“No, the police have never bothered me, they won’t start today.”

“What are you looking for?” asked Todd, starting to kick the grass around and see if something turned up, just because Dirk was doing it. He didn’t even know what he was searching for.

“Just- anything, anything that could prove that they-” Dirk froze. “Er, I- I mean, that he was shot from out here. I think whoever did it did it from around this spot, the trajectory is right.”

Todd stared hard at him for a couple of seconds, trying to read what was going on, but gave up and went back to poking at the ground with the toe of his shoe. 

There was something there. 

Todd felt a chill pass over him. “Dirk. Hey, Dirk.”

Dirk stood up and came over, pulling off his tie and using it as a barrier between the object and his hands as he picked it up. Even he knew better than to leave fingerprints, especially on a site like this. It was a bullet casing, one from a rifle, but not any rifle. This was a military grade, top of the market rifle, and he’d only ever seen casings like it in one place before. “God. They were here.”

“Who was-”

“What if they’re here right now?” Dirk spun around, glancing everywhere, trying to find something, or someone, in the trees surrounding the house. 

“Dirk?”

This couldn’t have happened, there was no way. Dirk felt dizzy when he looked at it. It glinted it the sun, just as bright and shiny as they always were. His hands were shaking, and it slipped from his fingers and back to the ground. He started picturing things, what could have happened here, what did happen a long time ago, overlaying them in his mind. It could have been the Three, they could have gone back. Martin must have been tricking him when they talked. But that wasn’t a Martin thing to do, and they had hated it there just as much as he had, so that only left one person who could’ve killed the owner of the mansion. 

Todd picked the casing up. “Dirk, is everything alright?”

“We have to go,” whispered Dirk. “You touched that, you got your fingerprints on it.”

“Shit.” Todd looked down at it. “I’ll just- we can take it with us.” He put it in his pocket. 

“Okay, please, let’s go,” Dirk said, his voice still very quiet. 

Todd looked at him. There was something wrong with this. Even if he didn’t know Dirk well, he knew him enough to pick out how abnormal this was. “Yeah, yeah, of course we can go.”

Dirk sat still in the car with his eyes closed for minutes before he could get himself to move again.

* * *

 

When there was another knock at the door, some hours later, Amanda expected Todd and Dirk back. She got out of bed, where she’d been laying with her laptop, and opened the door. “Guys, you wouldn’t believe what-” She froze. 

“Is Dirk Gently here? I sort of saw him come in, and I need to talk to him.” The woman had a military stance, she was tall and imposing, but her voice gave her a bit of softness around her edges. 

Amanda blanked completely. She knew that if she tried to say something, she’d start stammering like an idiot. She stood there, as if nailed to the ground, starting to smile even though it made her look stupid. “Hi, I’m-I’m Brotz- Amanda, my- my name’s Amanda Brotzman.”

“Okay,” said the woman slowly, a smile starting to form on her lips. “Uh, Dirk Gently. Was he-”

“Oh, yeah, he was here, but he left.” Amanda nodded. She sounded just as stupid as she was afraid she would. “He took my brother with him. Do you want to come in?”

“I’m Farah,” said Farah quickly. “I just- I forgot to say it earlier.”

Amanda couldn’t hold the grin off her face. Farah was- well, obviously incredibly beautiful, but also the way she said stuff struck Amanda as the most perfect thing since, like, aspirin or cinnamon bread. “Why are you looking for him?” She stepped out of the doorway to let Farah in. 

“I want to apologize to him for something - some things, really - that I said.” Farah sighed, stepping inside. “Um, nice place.”

“It’s a shithole, you can be honest with me,” Amanda said, looking over at her. “Want some tea? Or coffee? Or just water, if you don’t want caffeine.” 

“Coffee sounds great,” answered Farah, sitting down on the couch next to a folded up newspaper. So, this was a bit of a problem. Not only did she have a full schedule today, with no time to talk to Dirk in the first place, but he wasn’t even here, and his new tagalong had the cutest sister ever. She was in the shit. 

“You can stay until they get back, if you want.” Amanda’s head popped up from under the counter, where she’d been looking for mugs. “Or, if you can. You’re probably super busy if you’re Dirk’s friend. Do you have somewhere to be?”

“No,” Farah said immediately, smiling. Fuck. Of course she had somewhere to be, she had twenty-seven somewhere’s to be. And here she was, ignoring all of them. 

In a few minutes, Amanda brought over two mugs of coffee and sat down at the other end of the couch. “So, how do you know Dirk?” He wasn’t really what she wanted to be talking about, but he was the only common ground at the moment. 

“Long story,” muttered Farah, taking a sip of her coffee and burning her tongue. “How do you know him?”

“He just-” Amanda shrugged. “-knocked on our door like a week ago and came in. He was there for like ten minutes and he somehow convinced Todd - that’s my brother - to come out with him and when they got back Todd had, like, invited him over for dinner, which is-” She stopped for a moment, accommodating Farah’s laughter. “-which is totally weird, right? ‘Cause Todd is super private, he never has anyone over.”

“No, no, you don’t get how weird that is for Dirk,” Farah interrupted, still laughing. “I know him and I know that I’m literally the only contact in his phone that’s not a pizza place or the major crimes unit.” 

Amanda giggled into her coffee mug. “I’m glad Todd’s making friends. He hasn’t really done friends in a while.”

“What about you?” asked Farah. “Where do you work?”

“I work from home,” Amanda lied. She didn’t want to seem like some weird, pathetic shut in kept from a real life by some rare disease, not to Farah. “I’m a translator.” She nodded. “And you? You must be, like, a badass detective, right?”

Farah laughed, but much softly than before, and she looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. “Not quite. I’m an airport security officer. I had some training, in-in government scenarios but it… wasn’t for me.”

Amanda’s smile faded away. Farah looked upset, even angry. She gestured out with her coffee cup. “That’s still the coolest job ever, you know. You could stop people from bringing foreign lizards onto the planes and stuff! Drug busts! Do you get free flights and shit?”

“I get free miles but I don’t really use them. I’m saving them, I guess,” Farah said. “You know, maybe I should go.”

“No- I mean, they should be back any time,” Amanda rushed, setting her mug down on the coffee table. She didn’t know what exactly it was, but she very much didn’t want to be left alone, something she usually had no problem with. “Are you hungry? I suck at cooking but I could try to make something, it’s almost lunch time.”

Farah looked over at the kitchen. “You already made coffee, I don’t want to intrude.”

“Intrude,” assured Amanda with a little laugh. “Intrude to your heart’s content, I’m serious.” 

“Let’s just make some toast, then,” Farah amended. “That won’t cost you too much, it’s simple-”

“Yeah, toast sounds perfect,” Amanda interrupted, jumping up. “Want cinnamon and sugar on it? That’s how I like my toast, but you do you.”

There was a knock at the door. 

“Amanda, I’m back.”

“That’s my brother, hang on,” Amanda said, jogging to the door. “Hey Todd. Hey Dirk. You guys were sort of gone for a good while.”

“Well, someone got murdered, it’s obviously going to take a good while,” replied Todd, coming in. “Wait, who’s on the couch? I know you, right?”

“I yelled at you, last week,” Farah said, twisting around to see them. “I asked you who you were and you stuttered an ungodly amount for just introducing yourself. Dirk, I’m sorry.”

“It’s no problem, I don’t mind.” Dirk went over to her. “Actually you were a little mean, but you made nearly all very valid points, so it’s fine. You’ve met Amanda, I see.” 

“I’ve met Amanda,” Farah repeated. “She makes the most kickass coffee in the world.” 

Amanda grinned. “Are you guys in the mood for toast? We were gonna have some toast.”

“Yes please and thank you,” said Dirk, “and Todd lied to you. The murder investigating took a bit but then I needed- er, something happened that I wasn’t ready for and I needed a calm down time. Todd told me where the river was and we went down and watched the water flow for a while. Sorry if you needed us back.”

“No, no problem.” Amanda turned to her brother. “Todd, why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

Toddy shrugged, looking off to the side. He said, under his breath, “I don’t know, I didn’t know if he was okay with-with me saying anything. It was, like, sort of a personal thing, I felt.” 

Amanda nodded, smiling a little bit. “That’s actually… that’s actually really cool of you, Todd.”

* * *

 

The second they got back to the camp they knew something was fucked up. Their fire was going, a beacon in the darkness that had fallen with the sun, and there was a vague outline of a vehicle just out of the circle of light the blaze provided. Two silhouettes stood by the fire, unmoving. 

“Keep it down,” murmured Martin, turning the van’s headlights off, even though they might have already been seen. 

“Are we gonna be okay?” Vogel piped up from the back. “What’s-”

Gripps shushed him. 

Martin rolled the window down, praying the fire was loud enough to cover the noise. “Get your shit ready,” he whispered, and he heard the boys pick up their hammers and crowbars. 

“Boys,” yelled a voice, presumably one of the men by the fire. “Incubus. Come on out of the van, we just want to talk.”

“That’s Riggins,” Vogel said. “It’s okay, come on.”

“Don’t move, little brother,” Cross commanded, pushing Vogel back into a seat. “You don’t remember the shit that went down there, Riggins ain’t on our side.”

Vogel elbowed the side of the van next to his head, blatantly upset. 

“We gotta come out swinging,” Martin said, from the front seat. “Get ready. We’ll go on the count of three. One… two…”

By the fire, Riggins struggled to make out the shape of the van. The doors banged open and closed, and his stomach dropped. “We’re not going to hurt you, we just want to talk!”

“Who’s your croney?” shouted Gripps, smashing his hammer into some of the debris that laid around the fire. 

“Colonel Friedkin,” said a new voice sharply. 

“Stay out of this,” Riggins muttered. “Put the gun down, it’s not necessary.” 

Tension mounted as the Rowdy Three got closer and closer and time came to a halt as they reached the fire, the flames the only things between them and the two men from the government. They stared into the eyes of their childhood, the only parental figure they could remember having standing right before them. Gripps looked furious, as he often did, and Cross was stuck in a loop of anger and fear. Martin glared over the fire in his usual collected manner, shifting his crowbar from hand to hand. Vogel was smiling. The only memories he had of Riggins were good ones. 

“We need you back, boys,” Riggins said, and he sounded sad. “Blackwing’s coming together again.”

Martin shook his head viciously. 

“Come on, Martin,” pleaded Riggins. 

“Fuck you,” roared Martin, and in immediate response a gunshot tore through the night air 

Vogel didn’t get a chance to make a sound. The range was so short it knocked him back a few steps before he fell, and when he did, Gripps fell with him, kneeling over him. 

Martin flung his crowbar across the fire with as much force as he could muster and it hit the ground meters away, useless. 

“It got him in the chest,” Gripps called, and his voice sounded dangerously unsteady. “Martin, what do we do?”

Riggins pushed Friedkin nearly too close to the fire. “I said no shooting! I said you didn’t need the goddamn gun!”

“I don’t know,” Martin mumbled, and there were tears caught in his eyelashes. “I don’t know.”

“What do we do?” Gripps yelled, panic rising in his voice as he pulled Vogel onto his lap. “He’s not- he’s not moving-”

Cross dashed around the fire and threw a punch at Friedkin. 

It hit him square in the temple and he dropped his rifle, which hung loose around his neck on its strap, swinging back and forth as he tried to regain his balance and fight back. 

“We need to get him to a hospital,” Riggins said loudly. “Martin, please, let me take him.”

“You shot him!” Martin screamed. 

Riggins winced. “Martin-”

“Martin,” cried Gripps. 

“Martin, please.” 

“Martin!”

“Alright!” yelled Martin, and there was a moment of twisted clarity, perfect silence after the clamor. “Take him to the hospital.”

Cross looked over at him, eyes wide and betrayed. 

Friedkin went around to their side of the fire and took Vogel from Gripps, who didn’t say anything but looked confused, and tried to hold onto the body. 

“I’ll make sure he’s alright,” Riggins promised, and his tone was that of the caretaker he played so many years ago. “I’ll come back for you, don’t worry.” He got into his car and waited to start the ignition until Friedkin shut the door behind himself and laid Vogel out on the seats next to him. 

After several minutes of silent driving, Friedkin spoke up. “You just missed the turn for the closest hospital, sir.”

“We’re not going to the hospital, Colonel. We’re going back to the base,” replied Riggins, feeling like the shittiest person on earth. 

The Rowdy Three, who were now an actual, logical, painful group of three, had stood or knelt in front of the headlights as Riggins had pulled out. They hadn’t moved since, shock a thick, inebriating cement around them. It dawned on Martin, except for it didn’t just dawn, it hit him as hard as one of his own sledgehammers, that he’d made the wrong call. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 4 should be up friday!! thanks again


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking with this fic!! just for a time frame- it's been almost two weeks since the story started

The light wasn’t natural, which was all he’d known for nearly his whole life. It was fluorescent, buzzing in blocks on the ceiling. There was a little screen in the top corner of the room that displayed, for now, just a live feed. He looked over to another corner and saw the camera that was relaying the video, and then back to the screen. He watched himself stare off to one side, tapping his fingers on the arms of the chair he was strapped to. At the bottom of the screen was a date, today’s date, and had he been able to read it he’d have known it was four days after the men appeared around the fire. His chest ached, like nothing he’d ever felt before, and he felt a shock go through him when the door at the far end of the room swung open. 

“Vogel,” Riggins said, a wide smile on his face. “It’s good to see you awake.”

“I don’t feel awake,” replied Vogel, and his words came out slurred and slowly. “I- where am I? Where’s-”

“You’re back home! See, I’ll read you the file and you tell me how much you can remember, alright?” Riggins took a seat in the chair opposite Vogel, across the table. He placed a manilla envelope down and began pulling things out of it. “Here we go.”

Vogel felt dizzy, even though he wasn’t moving. “Why does- I’m-” He couldn’t think straight at all. “My chest…”

“Oh, oh, of course.” Riggins got up and went to the door, returning with a needle. “There was a bit of trouble and you got hurt, but don’t worry. You’ll get better. This will make it less painful.”

A streak of panic leapt up in Vogel’s chest and he tried to lean back, away from the needle, but he found himself unable. He barely felt it pierce his skin, but by the time Riggins had sat back down, the pain in his chest was already subsiding. 

“Alright, let’s see.” Riggins propped one of the files up on the table and began to read. He relayed the information in his own words, throwing in notes or explanations he felt it needed. “Six young boys were inducted into the Blackwing startup project with the hopes of bringing in more subjects as time passed. There were never any more inductions, the project ended after four of the boys - you and Martin and the others - broke themselves and project Icarus out of the facility and got out of our reach. Funding dropped, we only had one agent, and things weren’t going very well. Do you remember leaving?”

“Yeah,” Vogel murmured. “Martin had never driven a car but he took one of the military vans and… and went past the fence…”

“What do you remember about Icarus?” Riggins leaned forwards over the table, his elbows out. 

Vogel thought hard. “He left pretty soon after we got away, but I don’t- I think Martin made him go. We saw him just the other day-” He paused, let his mouth catch up to his mind. “-I wanted to say hello but we drove off too soon. We had coordinates…”

Riggins narrowed his eyes. “To where?”

“This… this building, the Ridgely…”

* * *

 

“The van’s not here,” Amanda said blankly, looking out the window. “It should be here by now.”

Todd was pouring himself a glass of water in the kitchen. “Maybe they had somewhere better to be.”

“I don’t know.” Amanda sighed. “I miss it.”

“You miss a van full of crazy, dangerous-”

“Who said they were crazy?” Amanda turned around to glare at him, and he came over to peer out the window with her. “You don’t know them. You only talked to them for, like, a second.”

“Dirk told me about them. They’re just the wrong sort of guys, trust me. Maybe it’s a good thing they’re gone,” Todd said. He took a sip of water. 

Amanda leaned back against the windowsill. “You’ve been acting like not-you lately, you know? You’re chill now, and you do cool stuff, and it’s weird. When are you going back to your job?”

“I don’t think I’m going back. It was dumb and it payed shit and like you said, I do cool stuff now, isn’t that good?” Todd asked, and while part of him didn’t want to care what Amanda thought about how he lived his life, the rest of him needed her approval. 

“I don’t know. You seem happier but-” She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s great that you have friends, and they’re super badass, but something seems sort of off.”

“How?” Todd was sort of offended, and it occurred to him that maybe she was jealous. “It’s weird that I’m doing important stuff?”

“A little,” Amanda replied, and her voice was getting louder. “You’ve always been a normal guy, and you can take care of me, and that’s enough, right? But no, you have to go out and do all this shit and solve a murder, like, Todd! Come on, this isn’t you!”

Todd shook his head, setting the glass down on the coffee table. “I thought you were proud of me for doing this. You were excited about it. And- and so what if this is what I want to do now?”

“You’ve having more fun out there than you are-” Amanda stopped herself, her throat getting tighter. 

“Is that what it is?” Todd glanced over at the alarm clock on the counter, checking the time. “You’re only good with me being happy if I’m happy with you? That’s fucked up, Amanda. That’s some fucked up, parents level shit.”

“No, I didn’t mean-”

“Whatever, I need to go anyways. I’m meeting Dirk by the river.” Todd turned and went to the door, grabbing a sweater off the back of the couch. “Be safe, okay?”

“Fuck you, Todd,” Amanda replied, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “Fuck you and your selfish, stupid, dumbass detective bullshit and-” He’d closed the door behind him, and she wasn’t going to keep talking to no one. 

Todd went down the stairs, letting out a breath.  _ This will boil off _ , he told himself.  _ Everything’s going to be back to normal, she just needs time to chill out _ . He went out to his car and drove, trying to organize things in his mind. Amanda would balance out eventually, but there was still an entire murder to be solved, and he looked down to the bullet shell, sitting inconspicuously in the cupholder. And then there was Dirk. They hadn’t spent that much time together, only about five days, but there was something Dirk knew about the murder that he wasn’t letting slip, or something else he wasn’t saying. The city flashed by, and before he knew it he was getting out of his car and jogging down to the riverside. 

Dirk turned around from where he’d been staring out over the river. “Todd! Hi! How was your morning?”

“Not as bad as it could’ve been.” Todd kicked a few of the pebbles on the bank as he reached Dirk. 

“But not as good as it could’ve been?” Dirk raised his eyebrows. 

Todd shook his head. “Nah. I’m not going to talk about it, okay?”

“Okay.” Dirk nodded. “I mean, we’ve only known each other about five days. Although it does seem we’ve gotten close, right? That’s not just me?”

“It might be not just you,” Todd replied, a smile teasing his face as he looked up at Dirk. That was arguably the dumbest thing he’d ever said, but, as he was quickly coming to realize, he said a lot of dumb things around Dirk. Five days wasn’t nearly enough to judge someone’s personality, their character, or even if they were safe to be around, but Todd had forsaken judgement, if only to do with Dirk, as of late. And he felt stupid and he didn’t care.

Dirk was saying something, and Todd realized how awfully easy it was to listen to his voice and pick up more and more about it, learn how it sounded, without processing a single word. He could guess at what was going on, but he had a feeling he’d get it right and then he’d have to face it, which he wasn’t ready to do. For now, it was just another mystery, which he’d been racking up lately. 

“Hey, I’m- I’m sorry. Could you say that again?” Todd asked, looking down at the bank of the river, beneath his feet. 

Dirk laughed at him. “What, have you already forgotten?”

Todd started smiling, against his will. Dirk had what was safe to call the most wonderful laugh in the world. “No, asshole. I wasn’t listening.”

“Ah. Alright. I was just discussing the case, really, I think it’s time we made a file, organized everything we know.” 

“What do we know?”

“The casing. It’s military, this was an inside job, I know it,” Dirk said, getting lost in thought for a few seconds before the usual grin returned to his face. “That was very ride or die of you, by the way. Snatching it up like that and taking it along after you had touched it. It was good.”

Todd shrugged. “It was nothing, it just seemed like what made sense.” Already, the stress over the argument with Amanda was fading, the morning’s events in the very back of his mind. 

“It was not nothing,” Dirk replied, squinting at him. “It was brave. It was very brave. What if someone were to find it in your car? You risked that. For my case.”

“It’s sort of-” Todd shrugged, simultaneously knowing he’d regret saying this while not being able to stop himself. “-it’s sort of our case now. Right? I mean, I’ve done a shitload of illegal stuff for you and it’s only been a week.”

“You did that for me.” Dirk raised his eyebrows and sort of snorted a laugh, like he was surprised, but not unpleasantly. “Who would’ve known.” He had no idea what to say, since this had never happened to him before, so he kicked some pebbles down the bank. 

“I didn’t- I-” Todd stopped himself before he went back on his words. He always did that, he always said too much and then he tried to cover it up with dumb lies, and he didn’t want to do it right now. “Sure. I did it for you.”

Dirk turned away, looking out over the river and willing himself not to get too sappy. This was a friend, this was what a friend was like, and he finally knew, and a tiny part of him wished Blackwing were here, so he could rub it in their faces. Look, here’s someone who’s  _ my _ friend, and he did things for  _ me _ . 

“Dirk? Did I say something?”

“Yes, you said something, duh, we were talking.” Dirk turned back around, smiling. He realized that his reaction could’ve very easily been read wrong. “Not something bad, though. Do you want to-?”

“Oh, yeah. The case-”

“The car- let’s-”

“Yeah, let’s go.” Todd stopped in his tracks back up the bank to where he’d parked, his good mood draining away. “Wait, the car… Amanda said the van was missing.”

“The van?” Dirk kept walking, pulling open the passenger side door. 

“The-the van outside the window, the one with the guys-” Todd struggled to describe it. The past few days had been a whirlwind of driving all over town, tracing routes, looking for things he didn’t understand fully, and two weeks ago, or however long ago it had really been, seemed blurry in his memory. 

“The Rowdy Three,” Dirk supplied. 

Todd nodded. “They’re gone. I didn’t notice it, but Amanda did. Is that important, or something?”

Dirk stood still for a moment, as if thinking, and then got into the car abruptly. “They’re camped outside of town, come on! It’ll take a few hours to get there, we should go now!” 

“We’re looking for them?” Todd asked, getting in and starting the car. He pulled back into the road. “Where are we going?”

“This field. Left, here, yeah.” Dirk buckled himself in. “Maybe something happened to them. There’s this… this thing. The thing the bullet came from, the thing I said I’d tell you about when you had me over and then I never did. Maybe it- I don’t know. Drive faster.” 

“I’m already pushing the speed limit.”

“Push it a little harder.”

They reached the field about two hours after they left the river, and they slowed to a comparative crawl as they drove down the dirt road to the encampment. 

“Look!” Dirk whispered. “The van is here! They’re here!”

“Shut up, shut up. Let’s get out and walk. No. Shit. They’re dangerous, we can’t just go and-” Todd looked up as the passenger door slammed. “Dirk!” He hit his fist against the dashboard and got out as well, running after Dirk. “Keep it down, okay? We don’t want them-”

“Hi, boys! It’s Dirk again! What’s the trouble? It’s not like you guys to abandon coordinates,” Dirk shouted, waving, and as they turned the bend in the road they saw the camp, and they saw the three men sitting around a blackened, dead fireplace. 

“Fuck off, Icarus,” Martin said, standing. He looked oddly small without his crowbar. “Go away. Go home. But you don’t got a home, so just… leave.”

“Okay.” Dirk looked down. “That really wasn’t necessary, but okay. You’re upset, I get it. What happened?”

“Stop trying to help.” Martin glared at him. 

“I’m not trying to help!” Dirk cried, kicking the ground. It was weird to see him get angry, because while he did have a wide range of emotions he didn’t exactly hide, anger wasn’t one of them. “I don’t care, I just want to know what’s going on.”

Martin dropped his cigarette and ground it into the grass with his heel. “It’s not to do with you. It’s our-”

“They took Vogel,” Gripps said, standing up. His voice was raw. “They took him right after they shot him.”

“Someone got shot,” Todd said to himself, under his breath. “Holy shit, someone got shot.” He lifted a hand to his forehead, and willed the wave of dizziness that struck him to pass. 

“Vogel? He was- he was too young, they- they wouldn’t do that,” Dirk said firmly, as if he was trying to convince himself.

Martin shook his head. “They did it right in goddamn front of me.”

“Don’t we need to tell the police?” Todd asked. He felt sicker every second, a headache definitely building. 

“No, we can’t,” Martin spat. “Of course we can’t.”

“Todd, the people who did this are… how do I say it?” Dirk bit his lip and looked like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world than here, talking about this. “Above the police? Far above the police. Telling the police would even get us in trouble, I think.”

Todd grabbed the front of Dirk’s jacket and pulled him aside, to the edge of the camp clearing.

Dirk started to laugh in lieu of anything else to do. “Ow! That was a little forceful, don’t you-”

Todd used his hold on the jacked to pull Dirk down to his eye level. “Dirk, we’re dealing with the fucking government. Let’s just go home while we still can.”

“Well then what kind of detectives would that make us? Not very good ones, I think,” Dirk said quietly. Todd could be frightening when he wanted to, and Dirk tried not to let it get to him. 

“Dirk, shut up. I’m not a detective. I was, like, maybe thinking about it, but this is bullshit. We’re going to get out of here, and we’re going to- to forget this happened, okay?”

Dirk realized, as he felt Todd’s grip on his jacket loosen, that Todd was only frightening when he was frightened. “We can’t forget it happened,” he said, trying to sound like he knew what to do. “We already started an investigation, and we can’t leave in the middle of it, without solving that poor man’s murder.”

“We’ll get killed. Dirk, this is out of our - out of your - fucking depth, got it?” Todd took a few steps back. “Let’s go.”

“You,” Dirk murmured, squinting at him, “have no idea what my depth is.”

Todd looked a little taken aback, but at the same time intrigued. “Fine, but this is- this has to be out of your league. This is the government, Dirk.” His voice was much softer now.

“Nothing’s out of my league, alright? Someone got killed, and I need to see if the murderer is who I think it is.” Dirk nodded, as if that made things final. “I don’t care if it’s the government. The government isn’t all that cool, you know.”

“Okay. Okay. That’s bullshit, but okay.” Todd took a deep breath. “If we’re going to do this, you’re going to explain everything.”

Dirk tried to smile, and it looked painful. “As much as I want to, now isn’t the time.”

“Dirk-”

“Sorry.”

“Dirk, don’t you fucking-” Todd sighed. He watched Dirk go right back over to the firepit and the men around it, and he found himself following suit. 

“We’ll get Vogel back, I promise,” Dirk was saying. 

“We can get him back ourselves,” Martin replied. “We don’t want your help.”

Gripps raised a hand. “Will you look for him, though? Please?”

“I miss him,” Cross added. 

“He wasn’t in good shape when they took him,” said Gripps. “He wasn’t moving, or, or breathing or anything.” 

“Boys, hush.” Martin came over to Dirk. “I know you want to help, but you ain’t any good at saving people, remember? You were always better at the opposite, little brother. You were great at-”

“Stop it,” Dirk said sharply, looking nervously back at Todd. “No I wasn’t, and I’m not now, and whatever you thought wasn’t right, because you didn’t even really know me.”

Martin held up his hands. “Alright. Whatever you say, little brother. But just ‘cause you don’t got your gun now doesn’t mean you’re not the man who held it.”

Dirk turned his back on Martin and gritted his teeth as tight as he could, which was his alternative to crying. “We will find him,” he muttered. “Come on, Todd, let’s go.” With that, he walked as quickly as he could back to the car. 

Only when they were back on the highway did Todd talk again. “So we’re solving a murder and looking for a missing guy?”

“Yes.”

“Right.” Todd was quiet for another while, and then he asked another question. “Are you going to tell me what those guys meant about you? I sort of feel like I have a right to know what’s happening.”

“They were wrong, so it doesn’t mean anything, okay?” Dirk leaned against the window and watched the road speed by. 

“Okay.” Todd looked over at him for a second. “No, not okay. Please tell me what’s going on. How do those guys know you? Who killed that Spring guy? Why will you only let me in on certain things? Is there some- some bigger thing happening under what we think is happening?”

Dirk sighed. “I promise I’ll tell you everything I know, but not right now. I can’t right now.”

Todd wanted very badly to pull the car over and wait until he knew enough to understand what was happening. He wanted to yell at Dirk. And what he found himself doing was still driving, and almost smiling, and saying, “Alright.”

* * *

 

“Hey, Bart?” Ken called. He wasn’t sure where she was, and this apartment was bigger than their last. There was something black in his hand, and he didn’t know what it was. It looked like a cross between a saxophone strap - he played sax in junior high and had to deal with those - and the little clasp under your chin on a bike helmet. Even those didn’t accurately describe it, but they were all he was coming up with. He had found it in the corner of the room where they stored all the empty boxes from their move, dust already collecting on it. “Bart?”

“Yeah, I’m right here,” she said, coming around the corner from the bedroom.

“I think this is yours,” Ken explained, holding the thing out so she could see it. 

“Yeah.” Bart snatched it away, tucking it into her back pocket. “What did you do, Ken? Look through my stuff?” Her eyes were wide, like he’d startled her.

“No! I wouldn’t do that, you know me.” Ken shook his head. “I was stacking up some of the empty boxes and it was on the floor in the corner of the room. It’s yours, right?”

“Well, it’s not yours, so yeah, it’s mine.”

Ken held up his hands. “I didn’t mean anything, okay? I just found it. What is it?”

“It’s nothing, okay? It’s some camera stuff.” Bart turned to go. 

“Bart- you know I wouldn’t do that, right?” Ken would normally let a comment like that slide, but this one caught him for some reason. The reason their relationship worked was that they trusted each other, and she sounded not only angry but unsettlingly nervous. “I would never go through your things, I-”

Bart patted him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I know. You spooked me for a minute, but I know.”

“Okay. Good. Great.” Ken smiled, putting a hand over hers and pressing it into his chest. “I’m going to set up my laptops and get to work. My job - well, this job, I guess, until I get another one - it’s at home. I can do it all from my stuff here. Isn’t that great?”

“It is. Computer stuff these days is so crazy.” Bart watched him nod in agreement and head off to the room they’d designated as his study. She went back to the bedroom and sat down on the bed, pulling the rifle strap from her pocket. It was dumb of her to leave it lying around, she was trained to be better than this. She knew she’d fucked up the minute she reached the gate of the Spring mansion and realized she’d left the strap at home. She was angry with herself.

It was something she’d get ripped up for at Blackwing. There was no way they’d tolerate something that big, something that put her in that much danger of being discovered. 

So she was lying to Ken. So she didn’t come out and say, ‘yes, babe, I’m an assassin.’ That wasn’t bad, right? Lying to someone you love when it’s about something important couldn’t be all that wrong. When she thought about it, it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. The life she told him she was living was all there was, and that was that. It was a good life, too. But when she started actually having to tell him the stuff she thought up, the explanations for what she had to do, she started feeling dizzy, and nervous, and sick. 

Maybe she just wouldn’t talk about work anymore. She looked down at the rifle strap, and something passed over her that made her fling it across the room. She wanted to yell, but the apartment was too small and Ken would hear her. 

If she there was something that would let her leave Blackwing, and get out of the program, she’d take it in a second.

* * *

 

At least her phone was in her hand. She had it, she could get help. But Todd wasn’t answering. He wouldn’t pick up. Smoke was already thick in the air, and she could feel it burning her lungs. Flames crept under her bedroom door, and she sat on the bed and hugged her knees, tears streaming down her face. The fire leapt across the room, consuming the rug and the clothes strewn on the floor and teasing the blankets hanging over the edge of the bed. 

She almost dropped her phone, her hands shaking violently, and she tried a new number, one she’d only called once before, and only then to check if she’d put it into her contacts right. “Farah?”

“Amanda?” Farah sounded surprised. “Are you alright?”

“I need help.” Amanda choked. “There’s- there’s a fire- I need medicine but I can’t- it’s in the other room-” She had to cut herself off as her words caught in her throat and ripped her lungs up. She couldn’t stop coughing. 

“A fire? Shit. I’m- I’m on my way over, just hang on. Stay on the line, alright?” Farah’s voice got higher. 

Amanda tried to say that it wasn’t a real fire, but she couldn’t. She nodded, but Farah couldn’t see. She took a deep breath, and it tore her chest, but she managed a few more words. “Where are you?”

“I’m- I’m on my way.” Farah sounded terrified. “I was going home from work, but you got me while I was on the road, I’m a few minutes away.”

Amanda backed against the wall and saw the fire flare up around the edges of the bed. She closed her eyes and felt the temperature rise. Every breath hurt. She’d been here so many times before but there was no getting used to burning alive. 

Time slowed to a crawl. The blanket around her was up in flames, and she felt her socks catch fire first. She didn’t hear the door bang open over the sound of her own screaming. Someone was holding onto her, and she reasoned it must be Farah, with what little thought she had left. It crossed her mind that Farah wasn’t getting burnt, and she remembered it was just the pararibulitis. 

“The bathroom,” Amanda whispered. “Medicine… on the counter.” She felt Farah’s arms around her disappear and she was breathing smoke instead of air. Then there was something in her mouth, and a hand in her hair, and everything started to smell better. 

She opened her eyes, and her eyelashes clung to each other, caught up in tears. Her whole body was slick with sweat and she was shaking uncontrollably. The smoke faded away, and her blankets were undamaged. She looked over her arms and her legs, half expecting blisters and burns but finding nothing. 

“There was no fire,” breathed Farah, above her. 

Amanda bit her lip, slowly catching her breath. She was in Farah’s lap, which, under normal circumstances, would be embarrassing, but now it was comforting. “I lied, the other day. Was that last week? I don’t care.” Her words came out slowly and quietly. “I told you- I don’t know, but it wasn’t the truth. I have this… this thing. It runs in my family. Neither of my parents had it, but- but Todd has it.” She reached up and wiped the tears that were tickling her nose off her face. “It makes you see stuff and feel stuff that isn’t real, like walking on glass, or the room is shrinking, or-”

“A fire,” Farah said, her grip on Amanda tightening. 

“So I don’t have a job. Mine is way worse than Todd’s, I can’t even leave the house usually.” She felt her throat get tight, and more tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry I lied to you I just didn’t want to s-seem weird, you know?”

“Yeah. I know. It’s okay,” Farah hushed her, stroking her hair. “I can stay as long as you want me to, alright?”

Amanda nodded, coughing. 

“Everyone lies about stuff, so that’s fine.” Farah had no idea what she was doing. She wasn’t even sure she was picturing the disease correctly. All her security and military training fell short in situations like these. “I lie about things all the time, so I don’t mind.” She didn’t think to ask why Amanda had called her first, over her own brother, or what had happened that made Todd unavailable. 

“Thanks,” Amanda whispered, wiping her face again.

Farah looked down at her. “Call me any time, alright? I’ll help you.”

“Alright.”

“Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll get the next chapter up by friday for real this time i swear


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am SO SORRY about the long wait for this chapter! i've had a busy couple of weeks. this sucks, but i'm changing my update schedule, as it was a little but too much for me. now i'm planning on getting a chapter up once a week, every monday. thanks for reading, ily guys

“Bart,” Ken called, knocking on the bathroom door. “Your phone’s ringing.”

“Answer it or whatever,” she yelled back through a mouthful of toothpaste. 

Ken sighed and lifted the phone to his ear. “Hi. Bart will be here in a second.”

“Who are you?” asked the man on the other end. 

A chill touched Ken. The man’s voice was flat and cold, like emotions had been beaten out of him. Even though her phone hadn’t recognized the number, he thought it must be someone he knew, and beyond not detecting the voice, the man didn’t seem to know him. He wondered who it could be, and who Bart wouldn’t tell about him. “My name is Ken, I’m-”

Bart pulled the door open and grabbed the phone. “Hey. Give me a sec.” She pressed it to her chest. “Sorry, Ken, I gotta take this in the other room.” She ignored Ken’s confused look, and went back into the bathroom. “Listen. Don’t call me like this, alright? You could have messed everything up.”

“Who was that man, Bart?” asked Riggins. 

“No one that you know. No one that you need to know.” Bart leaned her head down against the ceramic counter that held the sink. She told herself to calm down, and that Ken would probably forget about this. She’d almost exposed herself twice now, and it was wearing on her. 

He sighed. “Alright, fine. If you want to do that, then do that. But your orders are changing. You can’t kill Icarus. You need to find a way to get him back to me alive.”

“Did you ask the General?” Bart knew he didn’t, because she wouldn’t have authorized this. She wondered how much further he’d go, to protect his subjects.

“This isn’t her program, it’s mine. I started it, I raised you and Icarus and everyone!” Riggins sounded almost unstable. “You get him and you bring him in, you got that?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bart looked up at herself in the mirror, and then quickly back down again. She didn’t really want to see that now. It struck her as wrong that he said he raised them. He gave them books to read. He electrocuted them, and watched them learn tae kwon do. He did lots of things to them, but raise them. That was a stretch at best, but she couldn’t say anything. “Hey, promise not to do this again? I can’t have you calling me, someone might figure it out.”

“You don’t have the status to tell me what to do, agent.”

“Fine.” Bart hung up, throwing her phone at the wall. Conversations with Riggins always ended that way. They didn’t even need to be talking about something that made her angry, it just happened. She heard Ken asking if she was alright through the door. “I’m alright, alright?”

“Can I come in? Who was that guy?” Ken touched the doorknob. 

Bart shook her head. “It’s just some guy from work. I’ll be out in a second.” She looked back up at the mirror and ran a hand down her face. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to keep this up, balancing two utterly opposite lives each hidden from the other. It was enough to throw her down a hypothetical set of stairs every day, and she was too weak. She’d made too many mistakes, she’d let herself get too human. Whatever happened to her, it was her own fault.

* * *

 

Amanda hadn’t talked to him since he’d walked out on her the other day. They had avoided each other, which was awkward because the house was so small. Finally this morning he knocked on her bedroom door. “Amanda?”

Silence. 

He knew she was up, because she never slept past eight and it was nearly eight thirty. She was just ignoring him. “Hey, Amanda?”

After almost half a minute, the door swung open. “What do you want?”

“I-I want to say sorry,” Todd stammered, giving her the mug of coffee he’d made for her. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, standing right before the doorway. “I yelled at you, and I never want to yell at you, it just happened. And I didn’t mean it. I was just saying stuff, there was nothing to back it up.” He waited, felt the air thicken with suspense, felt her eyes going up and down him and saw the unimpressed look on her face. 

“Sure.” Amanda took a sip of her coffee and made to close the door again. 

“Amanda- wait-” Todd stepped into the room and immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry, I’m super sorry, okay?”

“Okay.”

“No- I didn’t mean it, alright?”

“You already said that, Todd.” Amanda sat down on her bed. 

He saw an outfit laid out on the floor by her closet and confusion struck him. What was it for? She couldn’t really go down to the supermarket, or catch a ride on the bus. He looked back up at her. “No, but you’re not getting this. I really, really don’t want you not talking to me.”

“I’m talking to you right now.” Amanda’s expression was unreadable. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I know.”

“You’re not- I called you things you’re not,” Todd said, kicking at her rug with his sneaker. “You’re not like Mom and Dad, okay?”

“I know, loser,” Amanda replied, but a smile was tugging at her lips. All of a sudden, her usual excitement and good mood were back. “Hey. What time is it?”

Todd took his phone out of his back pocket and looked. Dirk had called him twice. “It’s like eight forty-five. Not exactly, but you know.”

Amanda jumped up off the bed,  her coffee trickling down her arm. “Okay, what do you think of this?” She pointed to the outfit on the floor with her toe.

“It’s nice- but- what’s going on?” He shoved his phone back into his pocket. 

Amanda came over and put a hand on his shoulder, talking like she was in a library. “I’m going out. Just down to that cafe a few blocks away, but-”

“Is that safe? I seriously don’t know if that’s a good decision, I mean-” Todd took a few steps back so he could glare at her properly. “-no one knows you have it, no one knows how to help, or what to do if you get an attack, or-”

“I’m meeting Farah.” Amanda shrugged, her voice suggesting that this was no big deal but her smile saying otherwise. 

“What?” Todd’s eyebrows flew up. “When did that- when did you guys-”

Amanda looked down. “After we had that dumb fight and you left, I had an attack. I tried to call you, but you weren’t picking up, so I called her. We sort of knew each other a bit, so it wasn’t that weird, but… anyways, she came, and I had to explain it to her. She stayed for a while, and then suggested we meet up sometime. I think she just wants to check on me. She’s pretty weird, you know?”

“I know very little about her, honestly,” Todd said slowly. He was still shocked. “I’m- I’m so sorry I didn’t answer the phone.”

“It doesn’t matter. Someone did. Doesn’t always have to be you, Todd.” Amanda pulled off her sweater and started putting on the one she’d laid out on the ground.

“It should be me, though,” Todd said. “I’m your brother, I should be there for you when that shit happens.” 

Amanda looked over at him, a pair of pants half on. “I’m my own responsibility. It’s super great that you want to take care of me, and I appreciate it, but it’s not your job. Don’t feel like you have to. And seriously, I’m not holding it against you that you didn’t pick up. I was one hundred percent a bitch to you that morning.”

“It wasn’t even that I was angry with you, Dirk and I were just doing things,” Todd said, and he remembered what he’d been skating around telling her. “We went and talked to the van guys, Amanda. They’re- one of them is missing.”

“Oh.” Amanda was quiet for a few seconds, adjusting the scarf she’d just put on. “I don’t know why that upsets me so much. I didn’t even know them, but I- I thought I did, maybe? You know when there are things that shouldn’t get to you because they have nothing to do with you but they do? Because yeah.”

Todd realized that a tear had fallen down her cheek. “It’s going to be fine. We’re going to find him.”

“Call the police. Tell them someone’s missing.” Amanda wiped her face. “Shit, now I need to redo my makeup.”

“You don’t need to, you look beautiful - and we can’t call the police. It’s, like, Dirk makes these rules and we just… can’t break them.” Todd shrugged. “I don’t think the police would be able to help with this.”

Amanda sighed, pulling out her eyeliner and looking into the mirror on her closet door. “Sorry, I’m a mess this morning. Mood swings, you know?”

“Yep.”

“You really trust Dirk, huh?” Amanda moved on to the other eye. 

“Hell no. I trust him, like, the least I could trust anyone. He’s an idiot and he gets himself into dumbass, dangerous situations.” Todd took a seat on the bed. “I do not trust him.”

Amanda turned around. “You’re not questioning any of the highly suspicious things he’s telling you, though.”

“Amanda, I’m questioning the hell out of them. I just feel like he’s more familiar with situations like this, and we should roll with what he says.” Todd sighed. 

“But you like him, right? This is Todd making a friend, right?” Amanda grabbed a handbag that was sitting on top of her bookshelf. She pulled her phone out from inside it. 

“I don’t know.” Todd thought about it, and then realized that he didn’t want to think about it. 

“Hey, I need to go. We’re meeting up at nine and it’s literally five minutes before,” Amanda said, coming over to hug him. 

Todd stood up as she let go of him. “You have your phone, right?”

“I just looked at it. In front of you.” Amanda was grinning. 

“But is it charged?”

“Yeah. Eighty-four percent. Todd, I’m fine.”

“Your medicine. Do you have your medicine?”

Amanda pulled it out of the handbag. “Duh. I’m not stupid, Todd.”

“I’m just checking-”

“You’re sort of, like, the best brother ever. A douchebag, but the best brother ever. I need to go.” Amanda jogged out of the room and to the door. 

“Hey, I’ll drive you,” Todd called. “I don’t want you to be late for your date because you were listening to me talk crap.”

Amanda went back over to him and leaned her head on his shoulder, a nonverbal way of showing her appreciation. Then she grabbed his hand and dragged him out the door and down the stairs, not slowing down until they reached the car. Once they were driving, she finally replied. “It’s not a date.”

“Sure.” Todd kept his eyes on the road, but he started to smile. 

“No! It’s not! It’s just like when Dad went out with his friends to the bar, okay? It’s not a date.” Amanda was laughing. 

“She’s very beautiful, Amanda. Good job.”

“I am not on a date,” Amanda said, hanging her head back against the seat. “But also if I catch you flirting with her you’re dead.”

Todd laughed. “So it’s not a date, but it could potentially be a date.”

“You’re an asshole.” 

Todd parked in front of the cafe. “Have a good time. Call me if you need anything, and I promise I’ll pick up.”

“Thanks.” Amanda hopped out of the car, clutching her bag to her chest. “Bye.”

Todd watched her go into the cafe. He’d never been, only passed in when driving places. He hoped it was good, and honestly he hoped she’d have a good time. And there it was. That sentimental bullshit. Lately he was drowning in it, and he didn’t quite know why. Basically everything in his life had changed over the past three weeks, and that was probably it, but he knew there was something else. He felt weirdly open, and weirdly happy and like all the problems he had were ones he could solve. 

He remembered Dirk had called him and he reached for his phone. Keeping in touch with people was almost too strange. Out of all the shit that was happening, this was what made him laugh at himself, alone, in his car. He never kept in touch. He put the phone to his ear. “Hey, Dirk. I’m sorry I missed your calls.”

“Right. Well, no problem. I just wanted a talk, and we’re talking.”

“Hey, are you alright?” Dirk sounded off. Not that Todd had known him for long enough to tell, but- he could tell. He knew it was dumb of him to care, but he also knew that he was dumb enough to keep caring. 

“That’s a bit of a tricky question, I think, because no one’s ever completely alright, and everyone’s got this scale and when the amount of not alright gets heavier than the amount of alright then we’re not alright, period, but the moment when it tips is different for everybody, and this is a run on sentence, I’m sorry.”

“You’re not alright, are you?” Todd sighed. 

“I’m not completely not alright.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Something that I’d rather discuss in person, if I’m honest. Can I see you by the river?”

“Sure. Of course.” 

When he got there, the sky had clouded over, and the river was in turmoil, wind whipping across its surface and making little depressions in the water. It was chilly, and the scene was almost monochrome in grey save for Dirk’s yellow jacket, and even that had been washed out.

Dirk had his hands jammed in his pockets, and his shoulders hunched up, and when he turned at the slam of the car door, he looked like he wished to be anywhere else, doing anything else. It seemed like he wished that Todd hadn’t even shown up. 

“What is it?” Todd called, jogging down to meet him on the pebbly bank. 

Dirk twisted his mouth around, resistant, for a moment. “Well, you’ve been asking a lot of questions, and I haven’t been giving you any answers. And I- I value your presence, it makes things easier and better, so I’ve got to tell you if I want you to stay. Which I do. So this is it.”

“Do you want to go somewhere? Indoors might be nicer?” Todd was excited, he wouldn’t deny it. He’d been waiting for weeks to understand everything. 

“No, this is fine.” Dirk sounded nervous. “First off, I don’t have- I don’t remember my parents. I was raised in this… place, I suppose, it was…” He pictured the compound. “It was an orphanage.” It wasn’t an orphanage.

Todd rubbed his arms as another gust of wind blew over them. “Yeah?”

“Well, that’s it. I was raised in an orphanage by this man with a couple of other boys. Meaning the Rowdy Three. That’s how I know them, that’s why Martin calls me that stupid-” Dirk put a hand over his mouth and sighed, eyes closed, before continuing. “Anyways, that’s that. That’s why I want to help them. Well, I want to help in general, but that’s why I want to help them specifically.”

Todd sat down and tapped the ground next to him for Dirk. “That’s shitty, man. I don’t really- I suck at dealing with stuff like this, but you can talk to me whenever, I guess.”

“It was shitty, yes.” Dirk joined him on the riverbank. “Not that it really matters now, though.”

“It kind of matters, I think,” Todd said, looking over at him. “You’re always, like, inhumanly happy, and you’re not now.”

“I don’t like to think about it, but I rather had to if I was going to explain it, so yes, it’s bothering me a little.” Dirk looked down at the rocks, and then out across the river. “I never got any sleep there. We had to wake up so early, and I’d wake myself up earlier because I was nervous about what would happen during the day, and I’d just lay there and try to make the ceiling out, and I was always scared, and even though we should’ve been nice to each other we weren’t, and we were against each other for no reason, and I wasn’t- it shouldn’t have happened, not to anyone and definitely not to me.”

“I had a nerve disease when I was a kid,” Todd blurted out. There was something about your own horrible experiences that made other people’s seem less horrible, if only temporarily. “I still have it now, actually, I- my brain tells my body that shitty things are happening to it and it believes that they really are.”

“Really?” Dirk looked over at him, worry brewing in his eyes.

Todd smiled. “Yeah. Our childhoods both sucked ass.”

Dirk leaned into him, put his head on Todd’s shoulder. He couldn’t find the words to thank him.

And suddenly, Todd didn’t mind the wind, or the cold. He found himself willing to stay by the river for as long as he had to. It seemed warmed than it had been before. “So, the Rowdy Three as kids. That must’ve been beyond hectic.”

“They weren’t even the worst ones,” Dirk said with a little laugh. “Not even close. Bart was the evilest child I have ever encountered.”

“Tell me about him, and I’ll tell you if he was worse than Amanda, because she was fucking unbelievable,” Todd said, and he did perhaps the stupidest, dumbest thing yet, the top of the heap of stupid things he’d been doing lately. He leaned his head on top of Dirk’s, on his shoulder, and he didn’t think to regret it. 

Dirk was feeling much better, back to his old self with maybe a little extra thinking things over, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “He’d trip people on purpose. He’d hit me with that silly camera he carried around. He could tackle anyone in the place, even Martin. He was immensely angry, all the time. He always talked about wanting to run away, but he fit in so well with the people who ran it - the orphanage. Bart Curlish was absolutely the scariest kid I’ve ever met. Amanda was an angel compared to him, I’d bet-”

“Dirk. Someone was telling me about him.” The cold feeling returned to Todd, and he realized that whatever Dirk had told him, it wasn’t even scraping the surface. He still didn’t know what the government wanted with everything, or why the guy, Patrick Spring, had gotten murdered, or how they were going to find the missing man. He was brought sharply back to reality. 

“About Bart?” Dirk sat up straight.

“Yeah, this- this guy at the hotel-” Todd struggled to remember. So much had happened since then. “He was renting a room for a few days so he could move into his new apartment with Bart.”

“When was that?” Dirk was almost ready to jump into the car and go. While he was scared, there was a bit of excitement, maybe, over the fact of seeing Bart again.

“Like, three weeks ago. They’re not still at the hotel, if that’s what you were asking.” Todd sighed. “I just thought I should tell you.” He couldn’t accept that all these people from Dirk’s childhood were just coincidentally showing up in his life. There had to be something else, another layer to what was going on. He couldn’t quite figure it out, though, and it didn’t seem like Dirk was going to tell him. “They were moving in somewhere nearby. The guy, Ken, was really friendly.”

Dirk stood up abruptly. “Right. Todd, you’re wonderful. See you later.” And he started to head up the road that led from the road to the river. 

“Wait-” Todd scrambled to his feet. “You’re doing something important, I need to come.”

“Sorry, Todd. You are possibly the best assistant ever, but this isn’t an assist-able thing that I’m about to do.” Dirk kept walking.

“Hey! I’m not your- okay, maybe I’m your assistant, but I’m your friend first,” Todd called, waiting by his car. “I want to help.”

Dirk turned around. Hearing that might have made his entire week, but he wasn’t about to drag Todd into meeting Bart. “I said I was sorry, okay? I sort of want to just- do this on my own. It’s safer.”

“Safer? What the hell, Dirk, he’s just a guy from your god damn orphanage,” said Todd sharply, ignoring the feeling he was getting, the one that said Bart was much, much more than that.

“No, you- you don’t get it, alright? I have things that I don’t - that I can’t have you in on,” Dirk argued. “Let me have stuff on my own, okay?”

“You’re about to do something stupid, and I won’t let you get yourself hurt,” yelled Todd. He kicked his front tire. “You know what? Fine. I’m overreacting. You do your thing, but if you don’t call me in, like, an hour, I’m assuming you fucked yourself over and- and something happened to you, alright?”

“Sure, Todd,” Dirk replied, and he didn’t keep any sarcasm out of his voice. “Whatever floats your boat.” And he kept walking, right up the road and out of sight.

* * *

 

The door opened, and someone who wasn’t Riggins walked into the room. Vogel didn’t recognize her at all, and when she greeted him, he didn’t remember her voice either. The voice was usually what he remembered. Maybe he really hadn’t ever seen her before. “Where is Riggins?” he asked, and even he could wince at how weak his words sounded. 

“He’s following some nonsense. I think you told him, actually. He’s convinced that he’ll achieve something by watching this building in Springsborough,” the woman said, and her voice had no cadence. It was flat, like her expression. “Idiotic. I was thinking I should have him decommissioned, you know.”

“Who are you?” The lights were very bright, and Vogel had to look down, away from them, or else his headache would come back.

“I’m in charge.” Her words were chilling. “Now, if I’m correct - and I am, I’ve seen the x-rays - the bullet nicked your spine. You’re lucky to be alive, Vogel. But believe me when I say you’ll never be the same. That young Friedin is becoming more and more interesting. He’s waiting in my office right now, I just thought I’d stop down for a visit with you first.”

“But I’m the same,” Vogel said, and it seemed to make sense. He was still him. He was still alive, and he wasn’t planning on changing. 

“But you’re not!” She said it so pleasantly, in the tone of a school teacher. “You might have the same mind, and the same intentions, but I know for a fact that you’ll never walk again.”

“What?” Vogel looked down at his legs, strapped to the chair he was in. 

The General smiled. “That bullet clipped your spine, as I said, in exactly the right spot. Go on. Try to move them.”

Vogel told himself to point his toes, focusing so hard on his foot that his headache was slowly returning. He knew he was doing everything right, thinking what he should be thinking, and nothing was happening. He looked back up at the woman. “It’s not-”

“No, it’s not, but that isn’t what I came here to tell you,” the General said. “You need to keep telling Riggins bullshit. Keep sending him on his quote unquote missions, keep him occupied. I want him out of my hair. That’s one. Two, we’re friends. You’re helping me, I’m helping you. I won’t harm you unless you give me a reason to. Understood?”

Vogel nodded slowly, still trying to point his toes. He couldn’t accept that this was it. There had to be a way, if he tried hard enough, to make them work. 

“Now, I have a meeting to attend to.” She left, locking the door behind her, and made her way to her office, walking quickly. She had to get this done before Riggins realized that the house was a non starter and came back to the facility. She reached her office, and Friedkin abruptly stood and saluted as she entered the room. “I’ll make this as fast as I can, Colonel.”

“Yes, General.” Friedkin sat back down. 

“I want you in charge. You have shown much more initiative and talent than Riggins, or any of his previous officers. You’re the one Blackwing was meant for,” the General said, enjoying the spark in his eyes. “The program is yours now. You can have all the men and all the funding you need, but you cannot involve Riggins. I’m keeping him preoccupied for the moment, but if he finds out, I need to fire him. You must understand.” She was worried about how he might take that. She knew that he and Riggins were close. 

“You can’t just fire him, he knows too much,” Friedkin stated blankly. He giggled a little bit. “This sounds so James Bond, but like, you need to lock him up somewhere. Or maybe shoot him. I don’t know. Just firing him seems totally sloppy, though, if you catch my drift.” 

The General grinned. “Oh, Friedkin. You’re even more perfect for this job than I thought you were.”

“Thanks a million, General,” Friedkin said, looking almost shy. “But hey, what are my orders?”

“You’re giving the orders now. You don’t take orders from anyone but me, and for the most part, you tell yourself what to do,” the General said. She was starting to see how he could be a bit of a problem, but she knew he’d be leagues better than Riggins ever was. “Under normal circumstances, you would be instructing your men and doing what you thought was best to bring in the Blackwing subjects. But you were correct in asking, just this time. I do have orders for you, and those orders are wait here. Prepare everything you need, and trust me when I say they will come to us. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u guys can always talk to me on tumblr @belkittykelly, i'd love to hear from u!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry an update has taken so long - classes are out now so expect a chapter every other week! if there are typos, i apologize. this was written very quickly

After leaving Todd by the river, Dirk had gone straight to his apartment. He had gone through phone book after phone book, and, due to being a detective, he had plenty of them. The sun sunk in the sky and his fingers got tired of flipping the thin pages. He could barely keep his eyes open, so when they slid over the name Bart Curlish, printed in cheap grey ink on cheap yellowing paper, he didn’t register it. Then he looked again, and felt his heartbeat all through his body. He stared at the address, and jumped up to grab a pen. He copied it onto his hand and was out the door in seconds. 

He caught a taxi, which was something he almost never did. At least, he never told the driver a destination, it was always more of a ‘well where do you feel like going?’ He buckled himself in and let his hands fall to his knees, which he involuntarily knocked together with anticipation. He was nervous, definitely. It wasn’t going to be like a regular school reunion, Bart might not want to see him. Bart probably wouldn’t want to see him, and in fact, Bart might try to kill him. His thoughts floated to Todd, and how he could apologize to him. And he told himself not to think about that right now. Talking to Bart was more important than that, he could solve the murder. 

When the taxi stopped, he didn’t even realize it at first.  Caught up in different ways the meeting could go, he played them through his mind and decided on what to say. When he glanced out the window and saw an apartment that wasn’t moving, he paid the driver and got out slowly, walking up to the door. He checked the numbers on it against the address written on his hand, and he found himself almost wishing they didn’t match, which they obviously, glaringly did. 

He rang the doorbell, wondering how Bart got to the point where he’d have a doorbell at all. This seemed too normal for him. 

Dirk flinched when the door opened, and found himself looking at someone who wasn’t Bart in the slightest. 

“Hello?” the man asked, smiling in an almost strained way. 

“Hi.” Dirk waved. “I was wondering if I could talk to Bart? Or maybe I wrote the address wrong and this is a completely wrong house. I think that’s it. I’ll just-” He pointed off down the street. 

“No, Bart does- Bart does live here.” The man was looking at him funny. “How do you know her?”

“I went to school with her. Her?” Dirk tried to look into the house, peering around the man, as if Bart would be waiting behind him. 

“Oh! I bet she’d love to see you. I was just making dinner, though, maybe you could stay for that? I’m Ken, by the way.” Ken stepped aside and beckoned Dirk into the house. “We just moved up here from Cali, you know? This apartment is so much better than our last one. Where do you live?”

“Down by the river,” Dirk said slowly, looking around each corner they passed and expecting Bart. 

“You’ll have to tell me all about how Bart was in school. Junior high or high?” asked Ken, coming to a card table in the middle of the kitchen. “Sorry, we’re not completely moved in yet.”

Dirk didn’t reply. He was looking down at Bart, who was sitting at the table and staring back up into his eyes. “Hello, Bart. Ken’s invited me for dinner. I was just about to tell him what a troublemaker you were in high school, do you remember that?” He spoke slowly and carefully, and he took a seat opposite Bart. 

“Yeah, I remember,” Bart said, shooting a glance up at Ken. 

It dawned now on both Bart and Dirk that they’d have to play at this game all dinner and try to find out about the important things in secret. 

Dirk wasn’t about to tell Bart’s - husband? Boyfriend? about the murder. He cleared his throat. “You look beautiful, Bart.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Bart, kicking the leg of the table. 

Ken laughed from across the kitchen. “Don’t start sweet talking my girl, man.”

“How have things been? How have you adjusted to- to the real world?” asked Dirk, trying to make eye contact. 

“Things are good.” Bart shrugged. “I take pictures for a living.”

Dirk raised his eyebrows. “Oh! That’s nice! I’m a detective, you know. It’s the best job ever, really, because it’s like a murder mystery dinner but all the time.” Dirk giggled. It was so easy to pretend that this was all they were, and that Blackwing didn’t even exist. 

“Detective? That’s incredible.” Ken sat down with them, laying a bowl of pasta between them. “Just take what you want. But tell me about that. I heard some guy up the river got shot, actually. I was reading it in the paper-”

“Yes, Patrick Spring. I’m on that case, so I can’t really talk about it.” Dirk winced. “Confidentiality rules and the like. His house was beautiful, though. Perfect for taking pictures, Bart. Have you ever been up there?”

Bart glared at him from across the table, teeth gritted. “No,” she said, and her tone was just as pleasant as it ever was. “I’m not interested in architecture. More of a nature girl. Nature’s easier to frame.”

“But you must have a job with a magazine. A newspaper, perhaps?” Dirk pushed. He knew that Blackwing was behind the murder, he just needed to confirm it. “Someone could’ve sent you there, I suppose.”

Bart’s grip tightened around her fork. “A newspaper. And we moved here a week ago, I haven’t been assigned anything yet.”

Ken pointed his fork over at her. “Except that orchard, remember, babe?”

Bart raised her eyebrows. “Oh, right. It was one job.”

“How did those shots turn out, by the way? Are they going to use them?” Ken asked. 

“We’ll see. I thought they worked,” Bart said, looking down at her plate.

Dirk watched the conversation go back and forth between them, trying to pick up anything either of them let slip. It was unnerving to the extreme to see Bart in such an average setting like this, and he looked so different than he had when they were kids. Well,  _ she _ looked so different. Not bad different either, just like she’d come into her own. Dirk wished they were alone, so he could stop trying to figure things out via riddle and just talk to her. Everything was always so complicated, and if there were an easy way out, he might have been more comfortable. “So, you haven’t tried to find another profession after all this time?” he asked. “Photos all the way, I suppose?”

“It worked for me,” Bart said gruffly. 

So she was still with Blackwing. “Wouldn’t a change be nice?” Dirk looked over at her. 

“The job market is so slim these days,” Bart sighed. “I don’t wanna risk it.” 

“And she’s great at what she does!” Ken interjected. “I have some albums of her work, it’s beautiful. I could go and get one!” He gestured back to a shelf, where too many things were heaped haphazardly. 

“Ken, you don’t need to-” Bart began, but he was already out of his seat. She turned to Dirk quickly. “Why are you here?”

“I was in town-”

“Why are you here?” Bart repeated, her teeth clamped together. She was leaning over the table, getting dangerously close to Dirk. 

“Did you kill Patrick Spring? That poor man up the river?” Dirk whispered, holding eye contact with her. 

“So what if I did? It worked. I had a plan, and it worked.” Suddenly, Bart wouldn’t meet his eyes. She sat back down and started dragging her fork around her nearly empty plate.

“Well, of course it worked,” Dirk said, feeling a little bit irritated. She wasn’t being helpful at all. “He’s bloody dead.”

Bart shook her head. “You’re still stupid, Svlad.”

“Don’t call me that,” murmured Dirk, and now he too was looking down at the table. 

Ken returned, sitting in his chair and pushing his plate aside to make room for the leather photo album he set there. He opened it, marvelling at the pictures. He flipped a few pages, and pushed it over to Dirk. “Here, look at this one. It’s one of my favorites, for sure.” He pointed to it. 

Dirk looked at the photo. It was a field, empty save for of course the tall grass. There seemed to be no end to it, no border of trees or buildings. The sky was flat as well, lacking clouds but seeming to stretch up forever. It was almost in grayscale, perhaps taken at twilight. It made him wish that he could help Bart. Maybe she really did love taking pictures, maybe she wanted a job doing that for real. She was certainly brilliant at it. “Where is this? Doesn’t look like California,” he said conversationally. 

“Kansas,” Bart answered quickly.

“The paper she worked for in Redding - it was more a magazine, I think - they’d send her everywhere,” Ken explained. “What an opportunity, I mean-” He turned another page and shook his head. “I’d never even think to visit some of these places, but she can find this sort of beauty in anything. I swear.” 

Bart threw a punch at Ken’s shoulder, and it landed softer than any other Dirk had ever seen her give. “Don’t be sappy, Ken,” she said. 

“They are pretty,” Dirk agreed with him. “Very pretty. And your house is lovely and it was great to stay, but I think I’d better be going. Thanks for having me.” He stood up. 

“It was our pleasure,” Ken said, smiling. “Come back any time. It’s great that you were able to find Bart, after all those years.”

“Let me walk you out,” Bart suggested. “Ken, I’ll be right back.” 

Dirk let Bart take him down the hallway and to the front door. There was another door, off to the right, that he saw her glance at. “Bart, I can help you leave. I can get you out.”

“You can’t even get yourself out,” Bart said bluntly, putting her hands in her pockets.

Dirk pursed his lips. “Well, I’m not working for them anymore, am I? Not like some people.” He glared at her, but then sighed. “You have a lovely life here, Bart, you really, really do.”

Bart scuffed her foot against the floor. “I guess.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to worry about Blackwing?” Dirk shuddered. Saying it out loud was still rough, even if she was one of the only people who could understand his feelings towards it. 

“I’m not looking for help.” Bart took her hands out of her pockets to shrug. There was something in one of her fists. “Do you know why they had me get Spring?”

“Er…” Dirk went through each one of his ideas, none of them really matching up with the facts. There had to be a really valid, solid reason, because the CIA wouldn’t stand for just knocking people off for a good time. 

“Aren’t you a detective? Didn’t you figure it out or something?” Bart’s face wasn’t giving anything away. 

“I’m working on it, alright?” Dirk answered. “Things don’t just pop magically into my head - well, sometimes they do - but this one isn’t coming to me. Give me some time.”

Bart clenched her fist tightly around whatever she’d taken out of her pocket, and there was a crunch. “I guess they had me do it so I could find you easier,” she said, speaking as if she had much more important things on her mind, even though what she was saying was monumental.

“What- what do you mean,” Dirk was looking pointedly at the ground, not asking a question but automatically stating what he could process. “I d- I don’t- why are you-”

“It’s my job, okay? If I could, I’d be a thousand miles away from the CIA, but you know how it is,” Bart said, holding the fragments of a capsule in her hand too close to Dirk’s face, a strong, stinging smell coming from it. “Gotta do my job.”

Dirk was expecting his vision to start blurring, but when it did he still felt panic jumping around his rib cage. He reached out to the wall, trying to hold himself up, and felt Bart’s arm around him, pushing him towards the door that wasn’t the way out.

* * *

 

Todd had been in an angry and unsettled mood when he left the river, feeling nervous and not quite sure what to do about it. He expected Dirk to listen to him and let him come along. Dirk usually at least respected what he said. He had nearly gotten home when he heard his phone ring. He picked it up. “Hey, Amanda.”

“You okay? You sound way stressed.”

“I sound like I always sound, I think,” Todd replied, but he certainly felt stressed. Maybe he always did, or maybe Amanda was just being Amanda and getting casually worried about him. “I know, what does that say about me, right?”

Amanda scoffed legibly over the phone.

“What’s going on, sis? Do you need a ride home?” asked Todd. He could be honest with himself about this - he was really proud of her for getting out of the house and doing things. When his pararibulitis was as bad as hers, he was too scared to leave his bedroom. She was always the brave one. 

“I mean, I could technically walk, but Todd, help a girl out.”

“You need a ride home.”

“I want a ride home, sure. If it’s not some great inconvenience.”

Todd smiled. Sometimes, Amanda was a little rough to deal with, but just talking to her was making him feel a lot safer. “I’ll be there in five minutes, okay?”

“Okay. See you.”

“Bye.” He put his phone down on the passenger seat. As he drove over to the cafe, he wondered if Amanda had a good time. It had been so long since she was able to get up enough confidence to do something like this. 

Amanda was waiting outside the cafe when he pulled up, leaning against the building like she’d been there a million times before, and standing next to her, smiling at whatever she was saying, was Farah. She looked up and saw the car, said what must’ve been a goodbye to Farah, and jogged over. 

“How was it?” asked Todd. 

Before he even finished speaking, Amanda was saying, “Amazing.”

“Oh?” Todd laughed. 

“Did you know you can literally have them make your coffee however you want? And they have five different types of bagels.” Amanda smiled knowingly at him. 

“Well, yeah, it’s a cafe. They do that sort of thing there.” Todd shook his head. “I meant how was the company?”

“Todd, shut up.” Amanda was grinning from ear to ear. 

Todd raised his eyebrows at her. 

“I mean, she’s-” Amanda let out a breath. “-so cute. And she’s done some totally weird shit too, so there was a lot to talk about. I don’t know, it was just nice. It felt so good to not dance around my- the disease for once. Like, she already knew so I didn’t have to try and keep her from finding out.”

“I’m trying not to sound like a therapist, but this is a crap ton of progress,” Todd said, looking over at her.

Amanda shrugged. “Maybe it is. I think it was sort of a date.”

Todd parked outside the Ridgley. “Yeah, I know. Hey, look.” He got out of the car, peering at a van parked down the road. “Do you think the van guys came back?”

“That’s not their van.” Amanda’s smile had gone, and she stood next to her brother.

“I know, but maybe they got a new one. I thought you were worried about them,” Todd said. 

“That’s not their van,” Amanda repeated, tugging on Todd’s sleeve and starting to head towards the building. 

Todd jogged alongside her,  wondering what was upsetting her. “Hey, is that your phone-?”

Amanda pulled it out of her pocket as she closed the door. “Farah texted me… wait, where’s Dirk?”

Todd remembered what had happened before he went to get Amanda. How he was going to do that stupid thing the end all stupid things on his own. “Fucking hell, Amanda, he went to talk to the guy that killed Patrick Spring. I need to call him.” He lifted his phone to his ear, listening to it ring over and over. he found himself counting them, but he wasn’t sure of the number of rings that went before the phone took you to voicemail. “I knew this wouldn’t end well, I literally knew it.”

The phone made a click, the click that said it had been answered.

“Oh my god, Dirk, are you alright? I had a feeling- never mind, but where are you? I could go out and meet you, or- do you need a ride? We could drive you. I’m just, like, weirdly relieved that you’re okay-”

“Don’t call again,” said a voice that was rough and very much not Dirk’s. “It’s annoying.”

Todd felt fear and disgust jump up inside of him, the giddy feeling he’d had dropping away like how in films cars drive off cliffs. And maybe more out of surprise than either of those two, he dropped the phone and took a few steps backwards. 

“What?” Amanda was saying. “Todd, what was it?”

“Let’s get into the apartment,” Todd said numbly, picking his phone back up and finding that whoever it was had hung up. When they closed the door to their home behind them, he set it on the table and leaned against the wall, looking at it. 

Amanda snapped her fingers in front of him. “Okay, what happened?”

“Someone else answered the phone,” Todd murmured. “It wasn’t him. And he was going to see a literal murder, and nothing I can think of makes this seem good for him.”

Amanda went over and looked at the phone, sitting on the table. “We could trace the call or something, right? I’ve seen them do that in, like, a million movies.” She picked it up. 

“If you know how to do that, be my guest.” Todd sat down where he stood, right on the floor, his back against the wall beside the door. Dirk must be dead, he reasoned. Because he was with a murderer, and the murderer presumably answered his phone. And if he was dead, that was really shitty, because Todd hadn’t even gotten to know him that well, which was selfish, but that was the kind of person Todd was. 

“Yeah, I can’t figure it out. Hey! We could call the police and tell them the phone is missing and ask them to do it,” Amanda suggested. 

“We can’t call the police,” Todd said blankly. “That was one of his stupid rules, we can’t get the police involved.”

“Maybe Farah could figure it out,” said Amanda. “She did military stuff. I’ll call her.”

Todd sighed. Farah did seem like the kind of person who could deal with things like this, but the more he thought about it the more it became a clearly better idea to stay away, and more importantly, to keep Amanda away. 

“Hey, Farah,” Amanda said. “Yeah, could you head over to the apartment? No, no, I’m fine. I’m fine! Right now would be best… Okay, see you then. Bye.” She came over and sat down next to Todd. “Everything will be okay, Todd. Farah will be able to figure it out.”

Todd looked over at her. “Will you promise me?”

“Sure, what?”

“If Farah can track that call, you won’t go where it ends up,” Todd said carefully. 

Amanda immediately wouldn’t look him in the eyes. “Don’t be stupid, Todd. I’m not a kid. If you’re going to, then I’m going to go.”

“You don’t need to do this, Manda.”

“I want to! You do all this cool shit now and I never do anything and I want in,” Amanda said firmly.

Todd put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m trying to keep you safe, okay? I-”

There was a knock on the door. 

“Farah.” Todd stood up. 

“No!” Amanda whispered sharply. “There’s no way she got here this fast, she lives miles away. Don’t open it.”

“Amanda, I can’t not answer the door just because I have a cooler job now,” Todd said, although he was getting a cold feeling. “I still have to be polite.”

The knock came again, stronger this time. 

Amanda got up and took Todd’s phone from the table again. 

“Go into your room,” Todd whispered, finding her eyes with his as she nodded. He watched her disappear behind her door. 

Whoever it was knocked a third time, and Todd flinched. 

“Open this door or I’ll break it down, this is a government official,” a voice shouted through the door. 

Todd’s eyes widened, and he thought of the shell casing sitting in the cup holder in his car. His hand was on the doorknob when the door flew open and a man in uniform that he didn’t recognize strode in. 

“Colonel Riggins,” said the man, gesturing to the many badges on his chest. “I apologize for the forceful entry, but that’s protocol.”

“What do you want?” Todd asked, and it came out so quietly that he wasn’t sure if the man could even hear him. He found that he was holding his fists by his sides. Too much had happened today. 

“I was informed that there were coordinates leading here,” the man said. 

Todd’s mind went to the guys in the van, and how that was what they’d said. How one of them had been taken by someone. He looked up at the man. “Do you have a search warrant?”

“What?”

“I said, do you have a search warrant,” Todd repeated, trying to keep himself calm.

The man sighed, looking very tired. “No, but I don’t-”

“Then get out,” said Todd, and his voice was just above a whisper. “Get the hell out, please.”

“Look. I don’t need a search warrant, okay?” The man leaned closer to him. “I’m with the CIA. We don’t need to bother with those.”

Todd gritted his teeth. “So what do you want?”

“I want to stay here,” the man said, and even though he did still seem tired, he definitely had a bit of authority, too. “Until whatever is going to happen has happened. If you don’t mind.”

“I mind.”

“I guess you won’t be having a great time, then.” The man took a seat at the table and motioned for Todd to do the same. 

Todd did, even though he didn’t want to, and thought about Amanda, who’d probably locked her door and was pressed against it, trying to hear and understand what was happening, who was trapped in there until this guy left, which would be in forever. He thought about how he couldn’t go and talk to her, or even check on her, without putting her in danger, and, with a touch of panic, wondered if she had her medicine on her. How Farah was on her way here, and the moment she walked in the door, she’d be getting herself into whatever this was, which would most certainly put her in danger, and how he couldn’t call her to tell her to stay away because Amanda had his phone. He thought about how he was stuck here until this man found whatever he was looking for, and he couldn’t go help Dirk, who probably needed help more than anything right now, if he was even still alive. And he thought about himself, and wondered offhandedly if he was going to be able to deal with not being able to do all these absolutely crucial things.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so- i'm getting a lot more done on this fic than i thought i'd be able to. maybe expect chapters sooner?

When Dirk woke up, it took him what felt like a very long time to open his eyes, and when he did he wished he hadn’t. There was a harsh light right above his body, and he was tied too tightly to a chair. His feet had lost circulation, and he couldn’t move them if he tried. Everything - literally everything - hurt. He was attempting to think through all the drugs that Blackwing trained them with, trying to put a finger on the one that’d been used on him but he couldn’t get any of the ones he knew to match up. Maybe they’d made up some new ones after he left. 

There were voices, coming from somewhere he couldn’t see, and he stopped fidgeting immediately so he could try and hear. 

“This isn’t fair,” Ken said. He and Bart were standing by the doorway, and she was ready to go outside. “They can’t keep calling you out at night for this.”

“They’re my bosses, Ken.” Bart sounded tired. “They can do whatever.”

“You should quit. I bet people would love to have you.” Ken seemed to be pleading with her, obviously impacted by her schedule maybe even more than she was. 

“I can’t.”

“But-”

“I can’t, okay? Will you drop it?” Bart sighed. 

“Of course I will. I worry about you, though. I’m allowed to worry,” said Ken, laughing a little but in a way that made him seem sadder than he had before. “Drive safe. Have a good night.”

“You too,” muttered Bart. 

Dirk heard footsteps, and then the panic kicked back in. He tried to yank his hands out of the zip tie, but it just cut deeper into his skin. He couldn’t help but think back to Blackwing, and then he realized that that was probably where he’d be going. His efforts to get free doubled, but his whole body just hurt, and he still saw things blurry, and he started to cry. He didn’t want to go back. He could not go back. 

Bart came down the stairs. “Hey,” she said, looking unimpressed. “Ken is expecting the car to start, so we should get out there.”

“To what ends?” asked Dirk, looking up at her and frantically working at the zip tie behind his back. 

“To drive, I guess,” Bart replied, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him up, out of the chair. She untied his feet and pushed him towards the stairs. 

Dirk was finding it very hard to keep his balance. Whatever that drug was, it hadn’t completely worn off yet. He reached his hands, pulling at the zip tie and straining his shoulder, towards his pocket. 

“I took your phone,” Bart said bluntly. “You got a call.” She took a hold of his arm and began climbing the stairs. 

“No. No, no,” Dirk repeated, panic clouding his mind. “No- no! You cannot take me back there, please don’t take me back there.” He struggled to breath. “You don’t know the full-” He tried to break her grip. “-no! No!” 

“Hush, okay?” Bart sounded tired. 

“No. I’ll yell really really loud, and then Ken will come down and see what you’re doing,” Dirk said, gritting his teeth as she pulled him to the front door. 

Her unphased look faltered, just for a second, before she shook her head. “You’re too nice.”

“Why are you doing this?” Dirk tried, his voice getting thin as exhaustion crept through him. “Just- just tell me why, please.” The chill of the night air stung his face as they left the building.

“Get in the car.” Bart opened the passenger side door for him, and without waiting to see if he did as she said, she shoved him inside and slammed it closed behind him.

Dirk told himself to take deep breaths, and found himself trying to figure out what Todd would do, having found himself in this situation. Well, if he’d just listened to Todd in the first place, he wouldn’t be here. He kicked the car door again and again, hoping to set off an alarm or at least express some fear, and frustration. 

Bart got into the driver’s seat and turned the car on, taking Dirk’s phone out of her pocket and putting it on his lap. 

“Bart, please, just tell me why,” Dirk said quietly, looking down at his knees. Hopefully, he could find something to keep her preoccupied long enough that he could devise a way to kill himself before they reached the Blackwing compound. 

“I gotta. You know how it is. They tell me who to get, I get them, that’s how it goes,” Bart said, in her normal manner.

“Why don’t you leave?” Dirk wondered if he could break the window. 

Bart began to drive. “I can’t, you know?”

“Why not?”

“You talk too much.”

Dirk gritted his teeth. “Why not?”

“I don’t want Ken to get hurt, okay?” Bart pulled a turn much too sharply. “S’that what you want to hear? I feel bad about pulling him into stuff and I want to live long enough to get him out.” She looked over at Dirk. “Sound crazy?”

“No, no it doesn’t, not at all,” Dirk blabbered, feeling around his car door in an attempt to find the window crank. It would smash easier if it was half open.

“Sounded pretty crazy to me,” Bart said, almost to herself. 

That stopped Dirk. There was a level of self awareness, and of compassion, that he’d never seen in Bart before, even when they were kids. “It’s not crazy, Bart,” he said carefully, looking over at her. “I left because I wanted to have what you have right now. A beautiful home, and a beautiful husband, and a beautiful life. You have all that, Bart.”

“We’re not married,” she said, and she pulled the car over so she could look at him. 

“You’re living the life that I escaped for, and it’s magnificent,” Dirk whispered. “You’re happy with Ken, and he loves you so much, and he’s a wonderful cook. And it’s not like you’d be out of a job, because your photos are incredible. They blew me right out of the water.”

Bart shook her head. “It’s not all that.”

“It is, though, and you know how I can say that?” Dirk didn’t take his eyes off her, because he’d given up looking for a means of escape. His hands were numb, and Bart would come out on top if the law got involved. 

“No, how could I know that?” Bart looked at him like she didn’t know quite how to pin him down. 

“Because I’ve finally got a shot at it, and it feels amazing,” Dirk said softly, wiping his cheek on his face. “I have friends, and they’re good, and they care about me, and I love them, and I just need a chance to be good enough for them.”

Bart sighed. “How do you know they care about you?” A question sprouting from her own trust issues, of course, but a question nonetheless. 

“Because,” said Dirk, his voice quiet but stoic. “The last thing he said to me was that I was about to do something stupid, and he wasn’t going to let me get myself hurt.”

Bart leaned her head forwards against the steering wheel. “Get the hell out of my car.”

“What?” Dirk’s eyebrows flew up, and he felt his throat get tighter. “What do you mean?”

“Get out, come on,” Bart said, pulling his hands towards her and cutting through the zip tie with a knife that came from nowhere.

Dirk’s shoulders were killing him, and so was his head, and his hands were tingling as blood rushed back to them, but as he stumbled out of Bart’s car, his phone held tight to his chest, he felt elated. “Why are you doing this?” he asked her.

Bart shrugged. “That thing you said that he said, whoever he is. Reminded me of something I’d say to Ken.” And she reached over the passenger seat, pulled the door closed, and pulled back into the road, leaving Dirk standing in the middle of the city alone.

* * *

 

Todd had been sitting across from the military man for what felt like days, his jaw clenched, glaring at the guy. He was steeped in fear but his first thought was to be angry instead, and angry he was. This guy was violating his privacy, and his home. His whole body was tense, and his back was beginning to ache when there was a knock at the door. 

“Don’t move,” Riggins said sharply. 

“Fuck off,” Todd replied tiredly, getting up and going over to the door. He pulled it open. “Farah!”

Farah had her eyes on the colonel as she pulled Todd into a hug. “How long has he been here?”

“Like, a half and hour,” Todd replied, feeling a large percentage safer in Farah’s arms. She tended to have that effect. 

“Okay,” Farah murmured, letting go of him and walking over to the table. “What is your rank?”

“Colonel,” Riggins answered, standing up. 

Farah looked him over. “That uniform isn’t actually military or naval, but you don’t have the jacket… CIA?” She looked down and sighed. “Jesus. Where’s your team, where is your backup?”

Riggins shifted his weight between his feet. “This is a solo op.”

“And you just came into Todd’s home?” Farah froze. “Wait. Wait, I know who you are.” She took a few steps back. “You’re breaking the law.”

“You know him?” Todd asked, still over by the door, his thoughts solely on Amanda, just one room away. 

“I know of him,” Farah replied, and she felt a little less in control of the situation now that she knew who she was up against. This wasn’t just some CIA agent, this was the one Dirk told her about. The one that was after him, the one that wouldn’t let him go. She didn’t know much, but she knew to be more cautious than before. “Why are you here?”

Riggins walked over to her. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here because my friend is worried about the government agent at his house,” Farah said cleanly. 

“And who are you,” Riggins said, looking at her shirt. “Airport security? What do you know?”

“I had- training, okay?” Farah looked slightly unseated and more on edge, if that was even possible. “Enough to know that there are so many things off about the way you’re doing this.”

Colonel Riggins sighed. “I’m just here because I got a tip off, alright? I’m trying to find Dirk Gently.”

Todd’s eyes widened and he looked to Farah. This was the worst possible case scenario. Why in the world would a CIA guy be looking for Dirk? Had he broken a really serious law?

“I swear to god you just made that name up,” Farah said, in a manner that almost convinced Todd. 

“He made it up himself,” said Riggins. “I’m still trying to find him. Do either of you know anything?”

Todd was trying to think of a reason it would be okay to make up a new name for yourself, and he came to the conclusion that he didn’t care. Dirk could do whatever, that didn’t change the fact that Todd was about to lie to a federal officer for him. “No.”

Todd’s phone rang, from the other room. 

“What is that?” demanded Riggins sharply. 

“It’s just- it’s my phone-” Todd stammered, picturing Amanda, who didn’t know what to do with it and probably was just as surprised as they were. 

“Are you going to get it?” Riggins narrowed his eyes. 

“Uh, nah, no, I d- I don’t need to right now,” said Todd, trying with all of his willpower to keep his eyes off the door to Amanda’s room. 

Colonel Riggins headed towards the door. 

“No, no, it’s not important,” Todd yelled, finding himself frozen to the ground where he stood. 

“Sir- sir, don’t move,” Farah was saying, walking in front of the colonel and trying to prevent him from reaching the door. 

Riggins took a hold of her shoulder and pushed her out of his way. He pulled the door to Amanda’s room open.

Amanda was on her bed, her back against the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest. She looked pale and terrified, and before the door had opened, her eyes had been trained on the phone, which was right by the door on her shelf, and willing it to stop ringing. Now, her arms flew to the bed on either side of her and her chest tightened with panic. She didn’t know what she could expect, having only heard bits of the conversation, and this was worse than she’d imagined.

Riggins turned to Farah and Todd, who’d finally found it in him to move, and he looked irate. “You concealed a person from a federal officer? Do you know how many offenses that racks up just there?” 

“She’s-she’s just my sister,” Todd said, his hands shaking as he tried to do something. Anything. “She’s not- she’s just- she doesn’t like when people come- come over, so she’s- she wasn’t concealed, or-”

Riggins reached for the phone, on the shelf.

Farah darted under his arm, through the door, and grabbed it first. “You have no right,” she yelled, “to do this, alright? This is a violation of privacy.” She threw the phone down on the ground and stomped on it. There was too high a risk of the guy getting his hands on it and knowing they came in contact with Dirk.

Todd winced, but he saw her logic. How he’d afford another one, he didn’t know. He was terrified, he’d readily admit. He was scared that Farah was going to get herself arrested, or worse, he was scared that the colonel was going to do something to Amanda, and he was scared, in the back of his mind, that he was never going to see Dirk again. 

The colonel took a step towards Farah and into the room. “I have a high enough clearance level, don’t worry. I’d just like to ask this woman a few questions.” He looked over Farah’s shoulder at Amanda. 

Todd held himself back from doing something - he didn’t quite know what - and saw something pass through Farah’s eyes. 

“No,” Farah said, her voice as low as she could make it and dead serious. She pulled a knife out of her boot. 

“Holy shit,” Todd said, half to himself. This couldn’t be happening in his home. “Farah, just- just put that down, okay?”

Farah shook her head firmly, her eyes still on the colonel. “You are going to leave the room, and we can talk there. Don’t turn around. Back out towards the kitchen.”

“You’re threatening an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, Miss,” Riggins said through gritted teeth. He sounded furious, and his fists were balled up at his sides. “Think about what you’re doing, and the charges you’ll face.”

“Leave this room,” Farah ordered, her tone flat and unforgiving, her words standing far apart. 

There was a definite shift - Todd could feel it, although he couldn’t pin down what it meant or to whose advantage it was - and then the colonel did as Farah said. 

Riggins backed out of the room, and the minute he was out of the doorway Todd ran to Amanda and held onto her. She was still, like she’d been frozen, and her eyes were still trained on the doorway, where Farah was guiding the man over to the table. “Amanda?” he whispered. “Amanda, it’s okay. Farah- Farah’s- Farah saved you.” He was sure that it wasn’t okay, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. 

Amanda was still in his arms, she wasn’t even blinking, and Todd realized she needed her medicine. He couldn’t picture what form the attack was coming in, but he knew what was happening, and he couldn’t believe it took him so long to figure out. He should know her better, he should know the disease better. 

He laid her down as gently as he could on the bed, and began to look through the room for her bag, which she’d been carrying her meds in. He looked on the shelves, and through her closet, and couldn’t find it. “Farah?” He looked out of the room for the first time since he started to search for the medicine. 

Farah was kneeling on the ground, her knife several feet away from her, and the colonel had a gun trained on her head. “Todd, don’t panic,” she said, but her voice was shaking. “This is- everything is going to be fine.”

“Farah, no,” Todd said, words coming out strangled as his throat threatened to close up. 

There were situations that one could control, and there were situations that one could not, and Todd had never felt more helpless in his life. He’d never pictured a future for himself where shit like this would be happening, and now that it had happened, he had no plan, no way to deal with it, or cope with whatever happened because he hadn’t thought quick enough. 

“Todd- Todd?” Farah risked a glance over at him, and their eyes met. “I’m going to work this out.”

Todd shook his head, looking from Farah to the man to Amanda and back again. “No, Farah, this- this isn’t-” His voice tripped over the tears that had started to roll down his cheeks, and he sighed. This would be a great time to give up, he thought, but he couldn’t. Everyone that he cared about was in danger. “Please hurry,” he told her, quietly. 

Riggins didn’t acknowledge their conversation at all, he just kept the gun on Farah and took out his phone.

* * *

 

When Bart got back to the apartment, she felt numb. She’d gotten caught up in some dumb fairy tale Dirk told her, and he tricked her. Now she had to face whatever happened because of that. Of course, her mind went to worst case scenario first. Blackwing would show up, and they’d kill Ken and take her back and it’d be like when she was little, just trapped in there getting hurt. 

She closed the door behind her, hoping that Ken was already asleep and she didn’t have to lie to him any more. When her phone rang, it startled her. She saw who was calling, and she dug her teeth into her lip as a wave of fear and anger hit her. She kicked the wall to keep herself from crying. “Hey, this is Bart.”

“I’m aware, agent,” Riggins replied. “Where are you? You told me you’d come in contact with Icarus.”

“I’m nowhere,” Bart said solidly. If she was going to go down, she’d go down fighting. 

“Do not play games with me, Curlish.”

“I’m not playing games,” Bart snarled, an idea coming to her. “I can’t tell you where I am.”

“Why not?”

Bart smiled slightly. “It’s classified.”

“What the hell does that mean, agent?”

“I guess you need higher clearance or something,” said Bart nonchalantly, although she could feel her heartbeat in every part of her body. Keeping a cool, neutral demeanor would be important if she wanted this to work. “Sorry.” 

There was a pause, then Riggins said, “that’s a lie.”

“No, some guy called me to tell me you were off Blackwing. Really,” Bart promised. She’d heard talk around the facility that they were planning on cutting Riggins out, but she had no idea how far people had gotten with it, or if it was even serious. She hoped that the colonel would be suspicious enough to believe her. 

“That’s… that can’t be true.”

“Call the General, or whatever.” Bart leaned against the hallway wall, trying to keep her composure. If Ken heard her and came out, everything would be over. “Check yourself.”

“If I,” Riggins said slowly, malice pumping through his words, “am off Blackwing, Blackwing is over. It’s my program, I made it, I raised you all from nothing. I’m out, am I?”

“I mean, that’s what they’re saying,” said Bart, beginning to feel unsure about telling him this. It might not go well, and it might even go worse than if she’d just told the truth. But lately, telling the truth just didn’t seem to be an option for her. 

“Then you’re called back. I’ll come and collect you in two weeks, be ready to come back to the facility. If I can’t have you, nobody can.” Riggins spoke as if he were just talking business, not the life of a woman. Maybe matters like that were just business to him. 

Bart felt a hatred and a sadness douse her like ice water, and she hung up. She threw her phone at the ground as hard as she could, and she spun around to throw a punch at the wall. The gypsum board cracked beneath her fist, and she stomped again and again and again. If she just got exhausted, then all the emotions would go away and she might be able to sleep and think up a solid plan to get out of going back. 

She got herself into that, she was going to get herself out. Riggins would call the General as soon as he could, probably, and then she could just tell him that he was still on the program. But then he’d realize she lied to him, and he’d come and collect her anyways. 

Bart hung her head and took a deep breath. She was not going to let this make her cry. That would be too defeatist, and if there was something the wasn’t, it was defeatist. She would find a way to escape, even if it meant leaving the country, becoming a fugitive. She would not go back to Blackwing. She looked up, and came eye to eye with Ken. 

“Bart,” Ken whispered, sounding terrified. “What is going on?”

“Go back to sleep, Ken,” Bart said, looking away from him. “It’s nothing.”

“It is not nothing,” Ken said firmly, his voice somehow both commanding and soft. “You go out at night and I know you say it’s for photography and I’d believe that if you showed me some pictures once in awhile, but you don’t.” He sighed. “I don’t know what you’re going through, or what you’re dealing with, and I want to let you know that you don’t need to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with. I’m here for you, though, if you want to talk. That’s it.”

Bart almost told him everything. Then and there. She was so done with hiding things, and lying, and keeping secrets. It was wearing her down. It had been such a rollercoaster of a night, and in the face of being taken away soon - not that she was going to let that happen - she nearly gave in. She was going to say something, but Ken kept talking.

“I do feel left out, and it’s a little hurtful, though,” said Ken. “It just- something feels wrong, you know? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Bart couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She felt so awful, in a way she didn’t even know she could feel. “Just be nice. Be you, I guess. You’re nice.”

Ken nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay, of course. Did something about your high school pal get to you? I thought he was pretty cool. Very sweet. He caught right on to your pronouns-”

“It’s not about stupid Dirk, okay, Ken?” Bart glared at the floor. She took a deep breath and let it out, suddenly feeling very tired. 

“Right,” Ken replied slowly, as if trying to decipher something from her words. His eyes went to her phone on the ground, and he bent to pick it up. “Hey, you dropped this. Jesus, Bart, look at that crack. You seriously need to treat it more carefully.” He rubbed his thumb over the screen, seeing if talking about normal things would make her feel better. 

“You can fix it, right? The crack?” Bart risked a quick glance at her phone in Ken’s hand. 

“Yes, but as a general rule, you need to be more gentle to these things. They break,” Ken answered, prodding the glass around the crack. He saw the broken drywall, and chose not to say anything about it. The last thing he needed to bring up was something that clearly a result of emotional distress. It tore him up to see Bart like this, especially when he was used to her being so stoic, and so unmovable. This was just painful. 

When they met, she had scared him a little. Of course, he quickly realized that she had more than a little bit of a sensitive side, and she was lost on things he thought of as staple. She’d never seen Lion King before, and the first time she came over to his old apartment, years ago, he played it for her on a VHS he had lying around. She sat on the couch, her eyes glued to the screen, and spent the duration of the film laughing and crying and punching Ken’s arm whenever a song started, or when a line was said that she enjoyed. That was the thing about her. She would let media influence her - films and songs, mostly - but when it came to real life, she was usually neutral and almost cold. What was happening now was so unusual for her that Ken was getting more nervous than ever. 

“Want to head to bed?” Ken asked. He knew that Bart was tired, he could tell by her posture, which was never any good to begin with but now it was just that much worse. “I’m tired, and I want to get that guy’s computer back to him early tomorrow morning.” He wasn’t actually tired, and while he did want to return a client’s hardware, the time didn’t really matter. Bart just needed to rest. 

“Yes,” Bart replied, her feet dragging as she walked to the bedroom. She dropped into bed without taking her day clothes off, and she didn’t move when Ken laid down beside her. She wasn’t sure if he was sleeping yet, so when she spoke it was as close to a whisper as she could get it. “Hey, Ken. We should travel.”

“Hm?” Ken replied. 

“Let’s go somewhere. Right now. Kuwait or some place. I don’t know.” Bart’s mind began to fill with pictures of the jungle, of tropical reefs, of glaciers, of all the places they could be where there wasn’t a Blackwing. 

“Really?” Ken asked. He sounded sleepy. 

“Really. Can we make a plan?” If they could pull this off, thought Bart, she might be able to make it out. 

Ken chuckled. “Of course. Let’s figure it out in the morning.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this made me realize that i could write like 20k words of faranda hurt/comfort

“I’d just like to say that you’re a wildly resilient project,” the General said. She was sitting across from Vogel, as she normally did when she visited him. The difference this time was that Friedkin sat beside her, his hands folded in his lap.

“Not resilient enough, I guess,” said Vogel bitterly, looking down at his legs. He’d be turning nineteen sometime soon, but he had no concept of time in the little room they’d put him in. Maybe it had already happened. “I wanna go home.”

“This is your home,” said the General, falling into the cliche she sometimes played. The I’m-on-your-side one. She knew he could see right through her, which was part of why she enjoyed it.

“My family is my home,” Vogel countered quietly. 

“Your family believes you died in a bus crash fourteen years ago.”

Friedkin’s eyes were on the General, trying to remember everything she said and did for when he would have to be tough and scary and in control. It was already proving difficult, making his own decisions. He’d had to choose what car to drive when he went out to survey the land that the Rowdy Three were camped out on during the day and it had taken him almost half an hour. 

“Martin is my family. Cross and Gripps. They’re my family.” Vogel looked distressed. There was a rawness that came with being a Rowdy- they didn’t hide anything, and right now Vogel missed his family. “I want to leave, why can’t I leave?”

“You’re so important to the program - integral, I’d say, to helping us reach our goal,” the General answered. 

Friedkin raised his hand. “Um, what’s our goal?”

“I gave you the file,” the General dismissed. “Now, Vogel-”

“No, yeah, I know, but it was sort of late at night when you did that, and I was ready for bed so when I read it, the words were really blendy.” Friedkin cleared his throat. It had been easier trying to explain these things to Riggins, and while he was glad the old guy was gone, he wasn’t quite sure how to handle his job. “So could you just, like, tell me?”

The General sighed. “All you need to know for now is that it’s your job to bring in the other subjects. Use whatever you need, all the resources I have control over are at your disposal, and I’ll be able to get more if you succeed.”

“I get that, but, like, what’s the end goal?” Friedkin watched her carefully, hoping he’d be able to remember what she was about to tell him. He had a feeling it might be important. 

“I want the most highly trained assassins in the country back under our control,” the General said, and she sounded irritated. “Look at the state of the world right now. If there’s one thing we need, it’s those assassins. I could make a list just by watching the morning news of whom the country would be better without. And if they’re not with us, they may try to go against us, which, as you can imagine, would be disastrous.”

Friedkin nodded. “Right. Okay. I got it.” He tried to remember what his orders were. Find people? Get them? She’d just said it, like, a minute ago. Well, if it was really important he’d remember it later, or somebody would tell him. 

Vogel watched them discuss his life like it was a school project and wished he was strong enough to move his legs again. Because that’s what it was, right? What else could it be? Well, it could be something he couldn’t help. Something he should have been smart enough to avoid before it even happened. He couldn’t believe that there was a time he thought of Blackwing as good. He just couldn’t remember the whole truth. He should have listened to Martin. 

They got up, eventually, almost in sync, and bid Vogel an empty farewell before they closed the door, leaving him alone in the ten by ten room. The overhead fluorescent light flickered. Vogel looked at the two chairs they deserted, looked down at the wheelchair they’d put him in, looked up at the monitors in each of the four corners. His vision was too blurry to make out the date. He wondered how he knew his birthday if he didn’t even know his parents.

What time it was he didn’t know, nor did he know late they put the lights out, but he was so exhausted he expected it was near. He pushed his wheelchair slowly around the room, making a perfect square. He had to do it at a snail’s pace, or his chest would hurt and he’d get a headache. He wanted nothing more than to be anything else. There was a limit to how much he could feel in such a small, dim space, and it was driving him crazy. He didn’t know how long it’d been since he saw the sun, but it felt like longer than he’d lived. 

He wanted to smell a fire, hear the crackling and feel the smoke burn his eyes and his lungs, his family surrounding him, drumming on debris and humming. He wanted to ride in the van one last time, or a million last times, the cracks and bumps in the road rattling his bones and the guttural roaring of the engine filling his ears. He wanted natural light. He wanted fresh air. He wanted to walk. 

Somewhere, an automated system decided it was time for him to sleep and the light went out. Had he been able to make out the time, he would have read ten forty-five pm.

* * *

 

Putting all of his trust in Farah, especially to solve something as impossible as this, was hard for Todd to do. He watched her stare down the barrel of the pistol and his heart was beating out of his chest. Amanda was rigid in his arms, her eyes closed and her nails digging into her palms. He waited for her to do something, sort of expecting some tae kwon do or a spy-ish maneuver. 

Instead, Farah began to talk. “This,” she said calmly, “is not legal.”

“Are you saying you have a better understanding of the law than me, miss?” asked Riggins, almost a hint of desperation in his voice. He knew he was taking things outside of a mission protocol. But he also knew that he might be able to get some very valuable information out of the residents. He hadn’t planned for it to go this far, but then again he hadn’t planned for the woman pulling a knife on him.

“No, not at all.” Farah took a deep breath. “But I do know bits of it, and this is not right. What are you trying to accomplish here? An unprompted show of force isn’t necessary.”

Riggins wiped his forehead with his free hand. “Please, just tell me you know something about Dirk Gently.”

“Do you understand what would happen if I took this encounter to the police?” Farah asked, in a manner that suggested she would do exactly that the moment he left.

“Of course I do, answer-”

“They would talk to the head of their department, who would then be duty bound to make a call to wherever you come from.” Farah nodded to herself, as if she were running the process through her head to make sure it checked out. “If your boss - and I don’t mean to be rude, but everybody has a boss - hears that you were making unregulated moves, out of jurisdiction-”

Todd didn’t want to interrupt. It seemed like she was putting together a solid argument, and he didn’t want to weaken it, but as his fingers touched Amanda’s wrist, a shock ran through him. “Farah, I can’t find her pulse. Her attacks have never been- they never get this bad. She needs her meds.”

Riggins looked from Todd and Amanda back down to Farah. “I’ll make you a deal, okay? A sensible, man to man-”

“Hurry,” Farah said sharply, her eyes on Amanda. She was somehow the one in control of the situation - at least part of it - and yet she was unarmed. 

“I’ll leave, and you can forget this ever happened. Never talk to the police force about it, and you can get the girl’s medicine.” Riggins sighed. “If you go to the cops, I’ll know.”

Farah looked over to Todd, who nodded at her. “Yes. Agreed. Get out.” She stood up even before Riggins had fully backed out of the apartment. “Where are the meds?”

“In my car,” Todd said, remembering the trip back from the cafe. “They must have fallen out of her back. Check the floor and the seat-” Before he could finish, Farah was gone. He looked down at Amanda. Her face was even paler than normal, and the areas around her eyes had started to look sunken, even discolored. “Please just- be alright, alright?” he murmured to her, suddenly getting the feeling he was watching the scene from above and not a part of it. Too much had happened for him to process, but he couldn’t short out now. It wasn’t over. Amanda needed him. He didn’t know why the disease was worse this time. Maybe it was the tension of the situation, maybe it’d been ramped up by her fear, but he’d been stressed and scared before and his attacks had never gotten this bad. 

Todd heard the front door slam, and heavy footsteps running up the stairs. Farah would be back any second, but he realized that even if they could save Amanda, Dirk was still gone. He felt cold.

Farah pushed the apartment door open and knelt by them, opening the bottle she’d retrieved from the car. Her hands were shaking wildly, and some of the pills slipped out of them and onto Amanda’s bedspread. She put them into Amanda’s mouth and capped the bottle with some difficulty. “Did it work?”

“I can’t tell,” Todd said, his voice breaking over the words. “Amanda. Hey, Amanda.”

Amanda’s fists slowly unclenched, blood dripping onto her sheets from where her nails had gone into her palms. Her eyelids fluttered open slowly, revealing how bloodshot they were, and how faintly she was there behind them. “Todd? What happened?”

“Amanda,” Todd breathed, hugging her tighter. “Oh my god, you’re okay. What was it?”

“Fire,” answered Amanda, sounding scared, but not like she expected anything else. “It always is.”

“Why was it that bad?” Todd asked, not knowing how much was too much to ask her. “I’m just- I want to-”

“Can we just- not talk about it right now?” Amanda stood up. “Look, I’m fine, okay? How did you guys get the police to leave?”

“It wasn’t the police-” Farah began.

“Farah laid down the fucking law,” Todd said, feeling the giddiness that followed extreme stress start to set in. “She actually pulled a knife on the guy and when he, like, was going to shoot her she just schooled him. I think he actually got scared, it was incredible. Oh! And then she ran outside to get your meds, and-”

“It- It wasn’t like that,” Farah said, her voice not at all the commanding tone she used on the colonel but instead her normal, herky jerky awkwardness. “I just told him it was illegal, and he left.”

“Farah,” said Amanda, looking up at her. “You’re badass as fuck.”

Farah laughed a little bit, looking down at her feet. “I’m- not really.”

Amanda gave her a nudge with her elbow before turning to Todd. “Hey, did you guys call Dirk?”

Todd sighed. “Amanda, he’s-”

“No, he’s not.” Amanda was shaking her head. “When your phone rang- he was calling you.”

“We can’t be sure, though,” Todd said, making sure to deflate the hopes he was entertaining. “Someone else had his phone.”

“Just give it a try, okay?” Amanda went over to the shelf, only to look down and see the remnants of Todd’s phone on the ground. She looked like she definitely wanted to hear the story of how that happened, but presently she had other things on her mind.“Farah, you call him.”

Farah took out her phone, giving Todd a questioning look. 

Todd shrugged. “There’s no reason not to.” Well, there was. He didn’t want to get nervous and sad and angry at himself all over again for not being able to stop Dirk when he left the river. Tonight had been too full of terrifying shit to test his nerves any further.

Farah lifted her phone to her ear. “Hello? This is Farah. You’re- you’re where? Five minutes? I don’t even know how you’re as lucky as you are… Of course I’m here. What? See you.” She laid her phone on the shelf, and started to laugh, hanging her head slightly.

“So he’s okay!” Amanda exclaimed, looking pointedly at Todd like she always did when she was right. 

“I mean, he sounds fine,” Farah said, still chuckling. “He’s taking a cab over here. I don’t know how it’s even possible that he missed coming in while that man was still here by, like, fifteen minutes. That’s too much luck for one person.”

Todd was still sitting on Amanda’s bed, feeling like he was making this up. Farah was right, it was too much luck. He couldn’t even imagine what had happened to Dirk, and he couldn’t believe that Dirk was fine. There had to be a catch, or something. 

“He said he’ll be here in five minutes,” said Farah. “Should we tell him about the guy?”

Todd looked up at her, confused. “Why shouldn’t we-”

“Well, first, I think he knows the guy, and I’m sure he doesn’t like him,” explained Farah. “He might not want to hear about something that frightens him. There are certain things that you just-” she shrugged, “have to keep from people, understand? For their own good?”

“No, I get that- I totally do- but shouldn’t he know?” Todd asked her. “I feel like he might know, you know, what to do about it.”

“He doesn’t know,” Farah said surely. “He’s been trying to figure out what to do about that guy for years, trust me, and he doesn’t know.”

“Fine, whatever,” Todd said, feeling a little angry at Dirk now for telling him so little, but relief that he was alive still overwhelmed him. “It doesn’t really matter, I guess.” 

They stood around Amanda’s room, waiting. Amanda was getting her strength back, clearing her throat a few times so she didn’t taste smoke anymore and putting her hair up. She was getting over her attack, slowly but surely. She didn’t know why it had been so bad. She should know these things, things that go on inside her own body. It didn’t bother her as much as it should have. She was used to shit like that happening. She learned not to trust her body years ago.

Farah paced back and forth, glancing out Amanda’s window from time to time. Even though she might have seemed collected while she handled the government thing, she was still on edge, her nerves going wild. She was barely keeping herself together enough not to have a panic attack, and when she was focusing on trying to keep all of her anxiety in, she couldn’t do much else than pace.

Todd was trying to convincing himself that he didn’t need to be nervous about anything, not until something else shitty happened, but he was still too tense to do anything. He sat down on Amanda’s bed, trying to pretend the wrinkles in the comforters were interesting so he didn’t have to think about what he’d say to Dirk, or, more realistically, what he couldn’t say to Dirk. He understood the thought process behind Farah’s words, but it felt evil to actually lie to his face. He always ended up lying, especially when it made him feel the worst about himself.

When the knock on the door came and Todd got up to answer it, Farah and Amanda following him, all he could think of was that first day. Him and Amanda had been in some dumb argument about dinner, or their parents, when there was a knock at the door, and he went and opened it and there Dirk was. And then everything just changed. He wondered if this time would be the same. He pulled the door open. 

“Hi-” Dirk began, lifting a hand to wave. 

“Oh my god, you’re such a fucking idiot,” breathed Todd, pulling him into a hug. When he stepped back, Dirk looked like he was going to cry. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Dirk shook his head. “It was a mistake, and I see that now. Things went… less than well, and it’s sort of - well, entirely - my fault. More importantly, though, are you three alright here?”

Amanda went over and gave Dirk a hug, and he tousled her hair in return.  

“Not- not more importantly,” Todd replied. He was still nervous, almost jittery, and he couldn’t put a finger on why. It was great to see Dirk again, safe and okay. “What happened to you?”

“Great story, that one,” Dirk said, going over and sitting on the couch. “I actually got kidnapped. The nerve, right? Someone really just thought it was okay to get me like that.” He raised his eyebrows. “Reflection on the state of the world, isn’t it?”

Farah was glaring at him like she couldn’t believe what he was saying. “How are you okay? You seem weirdly okay.” She said that, knowing perfectly well that she was pretending to be alright as well. He was clearly hiding as much from them as they were from him. “Who did it?”

“An old classmate,” Dirk answered quickly. “It’s completely fine, though, we just had a talk in her car and she let me go. Figured out there was no one to ransom me to, I suppose. You know, that’s a good thing, but it feels surprisingly insulting.”

“Oh, you have friends,” Amanda said, gesturing around the room. “We’re just all broke, so ransom wouldn’t really work.” She laughed, and so did Farah. 

Todd grabbed Dirk’s arm. “Holy shit, what happened to your wrist?” He glared at the marks, red against the skin. It made him angry. Like, more than angry. It made him want to find whoever did it and fuck them up. 

“Um, nothing, Todd, obviously, just a stupid zip tie,” Dirk replied, snatching his arm back and pulling his jacket cuffs down to hide the marks. He sighed. “Can I make a cup of tea and could everybody please calm down? It’s-” He shrugged, looking upset. “-stressing me out.”

Calming down didn’t seem like an option. After all that had happened, losing Dirk, the man breaking into the house, Farah being held at gunpoint, Amanda’s attack, and finally Dirk getting back, there wasn’t even any calm left to use.

Farah looked over at Todd, trying to convey to him that he had to keep his mouth shut about the colonel. She stood behind where Dirk was sitting on the couch. “Do not do anything stupid without backup, got it? Never again.”

“Never again,” Dirk repeated, craning his neck to look up at her. 

Farah bent down and kissed his forehead. “Alright. You’re all safe. I’ll… I’ll head back to my apartment.” She headed for the door. 

“Farah-” Todd stopped himself from going over to her. “Thanks.”

Farah nodded at him and smiled a little bit, her hand on the door knob. 

“Hey, Farah,” Amanda joined her at the door. “Can I just come down with you? I sort of want to talk.” Her voice was softer than it usually was, anyone who wasn’t Farah would really have to try to hear what she was saying. 

“Of course,” Farah replied. She held the door open for Amanda and followed her down the stairs. “What is it? Was there something I didn’t catch?”

“No, I-” Amanda shook her head. “I just want to say thanks.” She fidgeted, picking at the skin around her nails. 

“Oh.” Farah looked down, smiling. “It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t, though,” said Amanda. “You saved my fucking life. You saved me and Todd, and you made that guy leave before Dirk got back so you technically saved him too. Like, you’re super badass and you don’t want to admit it.”

“I’m not badass,” Farah said blankly, making it difficult for Amanda to read her. 

“But you are! You stared down the barrel of a gun - do pistols have barrels? - and you weren’t even scared!” Amanda grabbed Farah’s shoulders. 

“No, I was scared,” Farah countered, looking down at Amanda’s hands. “I was freaking out.”

Amanda shook her head. “I couldn’t tell. Well, I wasn’t conscious, but from how Todd told it you seemed totally in control of the situation. What’s the-”

“I wasn’t in control, okay?” Farah said quickly, her voice clipped. She sighed, stepping out of Amanda’s grasp. “Amanda, I failed my military training. The army was the only way I was going to go to college, but they wouldn’t let me in after my psych exam. I aced weaponry, I aced hand to hand, I aced endurance, I aced it all. Except that.”

Amanda watched her carefully. She was getting the feeling that Farah didn’t open up that often so she had to pay attention. She was chewing her bottom lip absentmindedly, riveted to the story Farah told. 

“So then I tried the Navy. The SEALs. The marines. Even special services, which I obviously can’t tell you about. Do you know why I’m an airport security officer after all of that?” Farah looked up at Amanda for the first time since she started talking. 

“Um…” Amanda shook her head, not wanting to say the wrong thing and upset Farah more. 

“Because of the- stupid psych exams.” Farah laughed bitterly to herself. “I didn’t know what was wrong, because I didn’t even do anything, they just talked to me, put scenarios in my head and asked me to react to them.” She shook her head. “I went to a psychiatrist later, turns out I have paranoia, and generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder, and- As you can imagine, I didn’t get accepted to anything. And so I couldn’t pay for college, and I ended up doing… airport security.” She shrugged, rubbing a hand under her nose. “So, that’s that.”

Amanda didn’t know what to say. That she had paranoia too? No, that would be relating over the wrong thing. She didn’t know if she could change Farah’s image of herself, and it might be difficult to even try. But it did hurt to see her talk about herself like that. 

“I’m not badass,” Farah said. “Now you know.”

Amanda took her arm. “But- normal army guys and shit do whatever they do with years of training and great mental health. You just did it even without that, and having all that stuff you said. If anything that makes you, like, a billion times stronger than those guys. So some people didn’t trust you to keep it together under pressure. You clearly can! Their loss, but between you and me I’m glad they didn’t see how cool you were, because…” Amanda shrugged, her shoulder bumping Farah’s. “You know. We’d never have even met.” 

Farah looked over at her and smiled. She felt the tension that was always present in her body lessen a little. 

“Hey, we probably look really dumb just talking right by the door here,” Amanda said. “Can we go for a walk?”

“It’s night time, and- is it safe?” Farah replied immediately. Her anxiety returned, and thoughts of everything that had happened in the past several hours came flooding back to her. It was too dangerous to go on a walk.

Amanda opened the door. “Duh, it’s safe. I’ll be with  _ you _ .”

* * *

 

“And when she drove off,” Dirk was saying, “I didn’t really know where I was. I had a vague sense, but nothing more than that, and it was dark-ish out, and I don’t know why, but street lamps make every street look the same when you can’t really see the houses on them, and so I had to call a cab.”

Todd was sitting next to him on the couch, trying to think up a really good reason not to tell him about the colonel. “One request, Dirk. Don’t leave me behind when you do this shit. I, like- I know you’re not going to stop doing it but just… just bring me along, you know?”

“Oh, of course.” Dirk patted Todd’s shoulder. “I’m not going to do a thing without you. I think I’m done doing things on my own, at least for a little while.”

“I just- I hate when things- when I can’t stop things, you know?” Todd was overstepping, he thought, but whatever. “And you’re, like- you’re my friend, and I don’t- hearing that voice answer your phone terrified me, because I thought you were dead, and…” His voice trailed off. 

Dirk looked over at him. “Well, I’m not dead. I’m very much not dead, although there were some moments when I thought I might be close. But I’m fine.”

Todd sighed. “You’re not fine, you’re doing that dumb voice you did at the river, where things aren’t okay but you’re pretending they are, and your wrists are bad.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Just- stay not dead, alright?”

Dirk laughed. “I’m trying very hard to do so.” He bit his lip. “It’s very sweet of you to care, Todd.”

“We all care. Amanda- she made Farah call you again, and Farah stayed with us until she knew we were all okay.” Todd shook his head. “It’s weird how much everyone cares.” Apparently you don’t care enough to just tell the truth, though, he told himself. It was bothering him more than he thought it would. 

“Well, thanks a million,” Dirk said. “Actually, thanks a bajillion.” He leaned over and kissed Todd on the cheek.

Todd held onto him and kissed him back, not on the cheek, letting all the stress of the night, all the worry he'd held onto melt away. He felt himself get lost for just a moment before realizing what he’d done. “Forget that. Forget it.”

“But-”

“No, just please- no.” Todd sighed, putting his head in his hands. There was no way he could lie now, not after that. He took a deep breath. “Look. There was… I don’t know, a guy. He came to the apartment while you were gone.”

“What sort of a guy?” Dirk’s expression instantly hardened. 

“A military guy, I guess. Farah said CIA.” Todd stared at the floor as he spoke. “He asked about you, and he pulled a gun on Farah. Well, she pulled a knife on him first, but… Anyways she finally got him to leave and I don’t- I don’t know why he came here. He said he had coordinates, but that doesn’t even make sense, I just- I want to understand things.”

Dirk’s teeth were gritted as he forced himself to say, “It’s probably nothing.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Todd looked up again, and the awkwardness of the previous moment was gone to anger. “It’s not nothing, Amanda could have died.”

“But she didn’t, alright? So it’s all fine,” Dirk said quickly.

“It’s not all fine.” Todd stood up. “It’s not- Farah could have been shot. I couldn’t even find Amanda’s pulse, and you were fucking kidnapped, and so was one of the van guys, who we haven’t actually looked for like you promised, and I don’t have a real job anymore, and I don’t know what the fuck is going on!” Todd abruptly stopped yelling, feeling very angry and very small just standing in the middle of the apartment when Dirk clearly wasn’t going to tell him anything.

“I’m sorry.” Dirk stood up as well, pursing his lips. “You shouldn’t be dragged into my- into dangerous situations, and I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I’m alright with being dragged, but you need to tell me what’s happening,” Todd replied. “Who was that guy? What did he want with you? Who gave him the coordinates?”

Dirk chewed on this inside of his cheek. “Can we not talk about this? Please? I want to rest.”

Todd felt all the energy and all the fragments of an argument he’d been building disappear. So much had happened, and he was feeling it all. “Fine. Go home. But make sure you’re fucking taking care of yourself, alright? Don’t do some stupid shit on the way to your house.”

“I never do anything stupid. Ever.” Dirk risked a smile as he started to make his way towards the door. 

Todd wished he could do anything but smile back, and yet that was what he found himself doing. No matter how frustrated he was with Dirk, it never lasted, which was more than a bit of a problem. He watched Dirk leave the apartment, and sat back down on the couch. So, he’d fucked up. Pretty badly. He decided he’d try to wait up for Amanda, and wondered how deep a hole he was digging himself into by telling everything to someone who wouldn’t tell him anything.

* * *

 

Ken closed the door behind him, coming into the living room to see Bart on one of his computers. “Hey, how are you?” She hadn’t gone out to shoot for any of the papers or magazines she was signed to all day, and she’d barely moved since she came home late the night before, asking about leaving the country. “Did you have breakfast yet?”

Bart shook her head. 

“What are you doing on there?” Ken asked, walking over behind her chair. Well, it was his chair, behind his desk. 

Bark shrugged. “Did you know they have a thing where if you like a song, you can save it for later, and every time you go back, it’s still there so you can hear it?” She didn’t sound nearly as ecstatic as she usually did when she discovered something new. 

“Yeah,” Ken replied, raising his eyebrows and smiling at her. “Spotify?”

“It’s incredible,” Bart muttered. 

Ken took a seat on the floor by the chair she was in. “Listen, Bart, I was looking into travelling this morning before you got up, and I don’t know how soon we’d be able to do it.”

“What do you mean?” Bart looked down at him, starting to feel nervous again. If they couldn’t get out of the country, she wouldn’t even have a chance escaping Blackwing. She slid out of the chair and onto the floor so she could be on eye level with Ken.

“You need a passport, and those take like a month and half to get,” Ken answered, shrugging. “We could go after that, though. I’d love to see- I don’t know, everything.”

Bart was frozen. Whatever Ken was saying faded into the background, and all she could hear was her own heartbeat. There was no way this could be happening. She wasn’t about to get kidnapped by Blackwing just because she didn’t have a dump piece of paper, or whatever passports were made of. There had to be another way. Well, there was always another way, one that she really hoped she wouldn’t need to take, but with the current circumstances it looked like she had no choice. She couldn’t just do that, though. It would be unfair to Ken. Well, no matter what it would be unfair to Ken. She had to do something to let him know that she really loved him, before he started doubting that. 

Bart shook herself out of her thoughts and pretended everything was okay and that they didn’t have only thirteen days left together and she grabbed Ken’s shoulder. “Hey, Ken. Let’s get married.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is alternatively titled 'dirk says something mildly dark and then is so guilty and scared of himself that he cries, not once but twice in one night'

Of all the things that Ken imagined himself doing in his future, getting married definitely was not one of them. But here he was, and he didn’t know quite what to do or feel. He was happy, of course he was. He was the happiest he’d been in months. He’d started to do stupid things like dancing to himself when he was home alone and a song came on his Spotify radio that he liked, and smiling at himself in the bathroom mirror. He’d bought a magazine, an actual, genuine wedding magazine, and actually found himself looking through it in his spare time. Perhaps the furthest he’d fallen into the just-got-engaged stereotype was writing a poem about Bart. It was pretty short and in all honesty not even mildly good, but he still kept it. He woke up feeling happy and went to bed feeling happy and yet he still sensed that there was something wrong. 

Maybe this was just another effect of getting engaged, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off with Bart. A week had passed since she asked him to marry her, and with every day she glanced over her shoulder more frequently. If he didn’t know any better, Ken would assume she thought someone was following her, or trying to find her. Seeing her on edge made him so uncomfortable he was finding it hard to relax, and that added to the excitement of wedding planning meant he wasn’t getting much sleep. 

He tried to preoccupy himself with as many planning activities as he could, filling up his down time so he didn’t have to get nervous or over think whatever Bart was going through. He knew that if he spent too much time on it, he’d think up the worst possible explanation and feel awful. He’d already asked her what was going on, and she said nothing. That would have to suffice for now. 

He got in touch with his cousin, the only living relative he had, and talked to her about the wedding, which they had set for late September. She’d told him that she would love to come, but she wasn’t sure if she could make it. She was half a country away, and her second kid had just gotten into his terrible twos. Bart had told him that her family cut ties with her after she used the money they’d given her for college on transition surgery, and Ken wasn’t about to call them up and invite them to the wedding. All of their friends still lived down in Redding, so as he gave the matter more and more thought it seemed nicer to just make it a private ceremony. When he brought the idea up with Bart, she agreed immediately, and commented on how weird it was that people had their families watch them do stuff like that anyways. 

He was waiting for Bart to get home, fixing up a guy’s laptop fan as he did so. He felt bad about how poorly people took care of their technological equipment, but then again, if they were better about it he’d be out of a job. When he heard the door open, he stood up and jogged over. “How was the supermarket?”

“Good, I guess.” Bart kicked off her shoes and went into the kitchen, where she set down the two bags she was carrying on the table. “They didn’t have the weird fruit you wanted, but I got oranges instead.”

“Passionfruit isn’t weird,” Ken began, ready to defend what would’ve made a great sorbet, but he stopped, a cold feeling touching his bones as he saw Bart yank the curtains of the kitchen window closed. He almost didn’t say anything, but he’d been ignoring this sort of thing all week. “Bart, is something wrong?”

“What?” Bart looked back at him. “Am I acting like something’s wrong?”

“Don’t get upset,” said Ken, holding his hands up in a sort of a calm down motion. “But you sort of are. You close the blinds even during the day, you’re always looking over your shoulder- Bart, you lock the windows. Nobody does that, and you didn’t until last week.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Bart said firmly, and she bit the inside of her cheek so hard that blood began to fill her mouth, just to keep herself from telling the truth. “Will you put away the stuff? I need to go edit photos.” She turned and left the room before Ken could protest because she knew it would make her feel bad to hear him question her even more. She couldn’t tell him that she stop people for a living. She couldn’t tell him that her family hadn’t kicked her out because of her surgery, they’d thought she was dead for twenty years, and she couldn’t remember any of their names. She couldn’t tell him that she had no social skills because she was raised in an assassin training camp for kids, and she couldn’t tell him that because of Blackwing’s two week period before they tried to take her back, they only had five more days together. 

Bart slammed the door to her study hard and threw herself into her chair. She started chewing at her nails, a habit she’d only picked up again after that call with Riggins. All sorts of different layers of emotions were mixing inside her, and she didn’t know how to deal with them. On the surface, she had to be nonchalant, like nothing had changed and if that wasn’t hard enough, everything underneath was so muddled that she wanted to scream or hit things or cry every time she was alone. She was livid, which she could admit to herself. It was acceptable. She had- what had Svlad called it? Magnificent? She had a magnificent life and to have that taken away was unfair. Although, a voice in the back of her mind told her, to believe she was entitled to one in the first place was maybe even more unfair. 

She couldn’t go back to Blackwing. To let them take her would literally destroy her. Even if they didn’t kill her, they’d probably just lock her up forever, somewhere the light was fake and not the sun, and there was no one to talk to except secret agents, and she’d never see her fiance or walk more than a few feet at once or eat takeout ever again. She’d rather be dead. But she couldn’t bring herself to put a bullet through her brain, that would be unfair to Ken. She was a fighter, staying alive was in her blood, and she wasn’t about to make Ken’s life a tragedy. But what choice did she really have?

She looked across the room at the door, trying to think up a way out. Well, there was one. It would take the days she had left to prepare, and it would be cruel and harsh, but it was the only option that she saw ending happily. She finalized the idea in her mind, thinking through what she needed to carry it out. She could do this. She had no other choice. It would be hard, leaving behind the new apartment, and the benign chaos of Seattle, and the photography she was actually beginning to like, and Ken. She just had to be back before September. She wasn’t going to miss her wedding. 

-

Todd had felt different ever since the night with the army guy. It hit him that all the stuff he was doing with Dirk was actually real, it was actually happening, and he was actually a part of it. He didn’t know what to think about that, except it put him and Amanda’s lives in danger but he was still following Dirk around. 

They had gone to the Spring mansion one last time as the sun went down so Dirk could solidify what he was almost positive the conclusion had been. As they drove down the long driveway for the last time after having examined the lawn, the window, and the trajectory through once more, Dirk said that it was a military job with such finality that Todd almost expected there to be more evidence that Dirk just hadn’t shown him yet. 

They were sitting across from each other at a diner now, and Todd was getting sort of a lost feeling. “So what is there- what do we do? Now that, you know, we know who did it?” he asked, pushing his glass around on its coaster and listening to the ice in it clink against the sides. 

“Wait until somebody else dies,” Dirk said, looking almost dejectedly out the window that was right next to their booth. 

“No, I mean what do we do about this one? Tell his family? Tell the police?” Todd wasn’t experienced in detecting, but the case just didn’t feel done. There had to be one last step, something to tie it up nicely, because as of now, they were presumably the only two people who knew what killed Patrick Spring, and that wasn’t sitting well with him. 

“Nope.” Dirk sighed. 

“What do you mean?” Todd squinted at him. “There has to be something else, you don’t just keep the identity of a murderer to yourself.”

Dirk looked over at him in an almost irritated manner. “Well, remember, we haven’t uncover the actual identity, and if we tried to tell someone they wouldn’t listen. The truth sounds bonkers.” He tapped his fingers on the table. Technically, he did know who’d done it, but that was outside the set of facts that made up the scene for Todd. 

“Does this happen every time you solve a case?” asked Todd, feeling a little angry. “You just do it for you, and the person’s family never gets any closure?”

Dirk slammed his hand down on the table in a way that made several of the diner’s other customers look over nervously. “I don’t do it for me,” he hissed. “I’m the one who never gets closure.”

Todd had pushed himself back as far as his seat would allow, shocked by the volume of Dirk’s hand against the table and, despite knowing it was stupid, slightly frightened. Dirk had gotten like this once before, when they were on the outskirts of the Rowdy Three’s campsite. “What-what do you mean?” he stammered, trying to steer clear of saying anything that would make Dirk more frustrated. He didn’t know why, but his normal ability to stay angry had left him. 

Dirk sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, his stance - which had been full and powerful for a few seconds - melting into something that suggested he was very, very tired. “I- I didn’t- I’m sorry, I never-” He sighed again, his bottom lip trembling. He was reserved now, looking only at the ground, and it was an entire one-eighty from just a couple of moments ago. 

“What the hell was that?” Todd asked, his voice almost a whisper.

“I solve cases because I want to help,” said Dirk quietly, his eyes trained on his own knees, beneath the table. “And sometimes I can’t tell anyone who did it because there’s no one to tell. It’s not that I want to keep it to myself, there’s just… some things that you can’t tell people, no matter how badly you want to.” He finally looked up at Todd and his expression was saying that he was sorry nearly as strongly as words could have. “I wish I could… I want to fix it, but it’s just too much of a bloody mess.”

Todd pushed the logical thoughts, the ones that were telling him to just find the truth and figure out what was going on, to the back of his mind. “Listen, um… I’m okay with waiting for someone to die.” And that was completely honest. He would have liked to talk to the victim’s family, or the cops, or anyone, but he wanted to stick around in this life, he wanted to solve more murders, he didn’t want to just go back to an average job and fade away. 

“Don’t say what I want to hear because you’re scared of me,” Dirk murmured, clearly furious with himself. He dug his nails into his palms and glared at the floor as a tear slipped down his cheek. 

“No, I’m- I’m not scared of you,” said Todd. “Dirk, look at me.”

Dirk did, tentatively, guilt all over his features. 

“I’m not scared of you. I want to help. This- this stuff is the-” Todd laughed shortly as if in disbelief. “-coolest stuff I’ve ever done. I don’t want to do what I used to do, I- Dirk, I’m happy now. I’m in danger but I’m happy.”

“You really want to follow me about and help my detecting?” Dirk asked, wiping his nose and cheeks on the folded paper napkin next to his glass. 

Todd raised his eyebrows. “I’m crazy about detecting.”

Dirk smiled a tiny smile. “Thanks, Todd. You know, you’re quite good at following me about, so you’re already halfway there.”

Todd rolled his eyes. “Let’s go home, people are looking at us weirdly.”

Dirk nodded, and they left a tip on top of the table. When the doors swung shut behind them, they were greeted by a group of silhouettes standing in front of Todd’s car, made unidentifiable by the bright neon lights of the diner behind them. 

“Dirk, get behind me,” Todd whispered, immediately balling up his fists. He was making assumptions, but he couldn’t figure out a way the guys around his car could mean well for them. 

“No, you get behind me,” Dirk whispered back, putting a hand on Todd’s shoulder and pushing him back. 

“Fuck you,” whispered Todd. “I-”

“Hey, little brother,” said one of the figures, the familiar drawl permeating the thick summer night air. 

Dirk straightened up. “Martin. Why are you here?”

“Where’s Vogel?” Martin demanded, cutting straight to the point. 

“I think it’s very obvious where he is,” Dirk said, chuckling almost darkly. “We both know that.”

“You promised you would find him,” Gripps said from somewhere behind Martin. 

“And you told me not to very explicitly,” replied Dirk smoothly. 

“But you had the last word.” Martin moved out of the shadows quickly and gave Dirk a solid shove on the chest. 

“Hey,” Todd said sharply, and before he could stop himself and think things through properly, he threw a punch at Martin. 

It landed on his jaw, knocking his head to the side. When he slowly turned back to look at them, fury was all over his face, which was lit up on one side in neon pinks, blues, and greens by the diner signs. He snatched Todd’s collar and pulled him close. “Don’t touch me,” he muttered. 

Todd, held eye to eye with someone much taller than him, was forced onto his tiptoes. He gritted his teeth and futilely tried to get Martin’s hands off his shirt.

“Stop it,” Dirk shouted, not moving from where he stood. “Both of you, this is the last thing we need right now. Martin- god, just put him down!”

Martin threw Todd down much too hard, and used his other hand to take an unlit cigarette from one of his companions and stick it between his teeth. “As you say, little brother.”

Todd slowly pushed himself up off the concrete of the parking lot into almost a sitting position, a scrape on his arm starting to throb. He sat there and got his bearings, a hatred for Martin welling up inside him. 

“What if I don’t have time to get Vogel back, Martin?” Dirk was saying. “I’ve got an entire life outside of Blackwing now, and I’m not sure I want to go back there, for any reason. You’ve got a truck, you’re practically a four man militia. If anyone could pull off a rescue, it’s you.”

“Three man, now,” Martin said bitterly, sort of gumming the cigarette. “But we need you. You made us a promise. Are you going to start breaking your promises? You know who else broke a promise with me? It was years ago, but I remember, sure as hell I do. You’ve heard what they say… like father like son. He did really take you under his wing, more than any-” 

“I’ll shoot out your tires, Martin, watch your bloody mouth,” Dirk spat, fists at his sides.

Todd scrambled to his feet, holding onto his arm, completely lost in the conversation and feeling cold inside and out. What Dirk and Martin were saying wasn’t sitting well with him at all, and the longer he stayed there the more things he would hear that he’d wish he hadn’t. He walked straight past Dirk, then past Martin, resisting the urge to say something cutting, then past the other two of the Rowdy Three and to his car. He went around and got into the driver’s side, closing the door behind him. This was truly out of his depth, and while he’d like to understand what was happening, he knew that this wasn’t the situation in which to do so.

When Dirk said stuff like that, stuff that suggested he was capable of more than driving really, really shittily and making bad jokes, Todd knew he should be seeing red flags. He wasn’t, though. He felt unsure of what he was getting into, and he felt a little bit in the dark, but mostly he just felt proud. Seeing Dirk stand up for himself, and make threats for himself, was wonderful. 

Todd watched Martin and Dirk gesticulating points through his closed windows. Sometimes, they spoke so loudly he could hear some noise, but he couldn’t make out any words. He really did want to know what all of this was about, what history they had, what Martin kept referencing that made Dirk so upset, but he knew that this wasn’t the way he wanted to learn it. Dirk would explain everything soon, he was sure of it, and that was the only way he wanted to hear what Blackwing was, what Dirk did before becoming a detective, or where Vogel was. He winced as he pulled grit from the concrete out of the scrape down his forearm, which was tingling and cold the way most scrapes were, waiting for Dirk to finish things. 

Finally, Dirk got back into the car, slamming the door behind him. He leaned forwards and rested his forehead on the dashboard. 

“What’s the consensus?” Todd asked carefully, trying to find a way to say ‘what happened’ without actually saying ‘what happened’. “You okay?”

“No,” replied Dirk. He was crying again, his shoulders shaking slightly. 

“What-”

“Can you just drive the car?” Dirk begged, his voice harsh after yelling for minutes straight.

“Um- yeah, of course.” Todd pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. “I don’t know where your house is, do you want to drive?”

“No. Go like you’re going to the river but instead of turning down the river road keep going straight and it’s there. It looks like a condo but it’s really just a flat.” Dirk sounded stuffy. He sniffed. “I’ll be better when we reach it, I can show you.” He turned away from Todd and put his face against the window, wincing whenever they went over a bump. 

After about twenty minutes in a silence so uncomfortable that it was hard to bear, Todd cleared his throat. “So how did things work out?”

“They didn’t,” Dirk replied, sighing deeply. He sat up straight again, which was a good sign. “Martin said mean things to me and I said mean things to him and neither of us could really remember our points in the first place.”

“Vogel.”

“Well, yes, Todd, I remember it  _ now _ .”

“And Martin-”

“You did a wonderful job at hitting him.” A little bit of the normal jovial touch in Dirk’s voice was returning. “It made me happy that you’d hit a dangerous man because of me. I was- well, I was shocked, at first, but then I was quite proud.”

Todd looked over at him for a second, despite not being able to see anything inside the car in the dark. “I was proud when you told him you’d fuck his car up.”

“I didn’t say it like that!”

“I mean, I’m taking the gist of it.”

“You take the gist of far too many things, Todd Brotzman.”

-

Amanda was at Farah’s. In the nine or so days since they’d had their talk at the bottom of the stairs in the Ridgely, they’d spent as much time together as possible. Right now, they were watching some low budget spy show that Amanda was absolutely enthralled in, and that Farah kept gently criticizing. 

“That wouldn’t work,” Farah said softly. “That trajectory would never make it into the building, let alone into that room.”

Amanda put on a poor imitation of Farah’s voice. “‘I’m not a spy, I was never a spy.’”

“I wasn’t!” Farah exclaimed.

“Then stop pulling the rug out from under these spies,” Amanda said, laughing. “They’re trying their best, Farah. Give them their moment.”

“Fine. Just- it’s not very accurate, that’s all I’m saying.”

Amanda laughed harder, nudging Farah with her shoulder. 

Farah gave her a little push in return. 

Amanda looked over at Farah, tugging the sleeves of her shirt down to cover her most of her fingers. “Um, hey, Farah.”

“Yes?” Farah diverted her attention from the show. 

“You know how we were, like, hanging out a bit, and then you saved my life, and we kept hanging out…” Amanda shrugged. She found a sudden interest in a loose thread on the couch and wound it around one of her fingers, tugging at it. 

“Yes, I do know those things, I mean, I was there with you-” Farah raised her eyebrows. “Manda, are you asking me out?”

Amanda shrugged again. “Like, maybe. If you want to-”

“Yes. I- I mean, I will be… with you….” It was perhaps the most awkwardly Farah had ever delivered a sentence, and she’d delivered a lot of awkward sentences. This one, however, took the cake. 

Amanda didn’t care. Farah talked like Farah, and she’d grown to love all the emphasis on the wrong words and the tiny pauses in weird places. She leaned her head on Farah’s shoulder. “That’s rad as hell, Farah.”

Farah chuckled, running a hand through Amanda’s hair. 

“Wait!” Amanda sat bolt upright. “Does this mean I can fly on planes for free? I’m not going to, like, date you for your planes, but…”

“They’re not my planes, they’re the airline’s planes, Amanda.” Farah sighed. “But I get free mileage sometimes. Since I never take trips I have a lot of them saved up. You could have some.”

“Farah, hello? I’m not going to take your miles or whatever and go on a trip without you,” Amanda said, as if it was the most obvious thing ever. “I can’t take a flight with my girlfriend’s miles and not bring my girlfriend.” 

Farah practically melted. To actually hear Amanda calling her that was too much for her. “You’re such a dork,” she replied. 

“That’s not a no, though?” Amanda raised her eyebrows. 

“I have stuff to sort out here before I can up and leave,” Farah said. “We need to take care of what happened with that CIA guy. I’m planning on going to the police and explaining the whole thing. It seemed way outside protocol, I mean- when I say it was weird, I’m saying really, really weird. If I word it right and seem informed enough, the police will talk to a CIA coordinator, and I’m pretty sure whoever that guy’s supervising officer is, they won’t know that he was at your house that night. Hopefully I can get him fired.”

“Badass.”

“It’s just the law.”

“It’s fucking badass, Farah, come on,” Amanda said, looking over at her and smiling.

Farah shrugged and pointed to the screen. “There’s no way she could’ve done that without ropes. It’s like they forget that gravity exists when they make these things.”

“I’m so in love with you.”

“We’ve known each other for three weeks.”

Amanda shrugged. “So?”

“I love you, too,” Farah said quietly, smiling broadly as she shook her head at the screen. 

-

Friedkin strode down the hallway. Ever since his promotion he’d been gaining confidence. Now, when he made a mistake, he could just blame it on one of the many people who worked for him. What was maybe even better was the fact that he could wear his armored vest and gloves all the time and no one would question it. He loved those gloves.  

“Friedkin! Hey!” A voice that Friedkin knew all too well called out sharply behind him. 

Friedkin sighed, rolling his eyes and turning on his heel to face his former boss. “Hi.”

“Hi what?” Riggins asked, taken aback by the lack of authority he was given in the conversation. 

“Um, I don’t know.” Friedkin shrugged. “Hi, pal.”

Riggins shook his head. “That’s unimportant. Listen to me, I need you to tell me something - not that anyone would go to you with crucial information…” His voice trailed off as he figured out how ridiculous it was to be asking Friedkin, of all people. But, as it seemed, Friedkin was the only one he could trust until he confirmed that Marzanna was lying to him. Not that he believed her. No one would have the audacity to boot him from his own project. “Where do I stand… with Blackwing?” He said it under his breath. 

Friedkin clasped his hands together and made a face that suggested he was sort of  embarrassed. “You made it up.”

“And?” Riggins was now struggling to keep up with Friedkin’s almost powerful gait. It never used to be this way. He always used to walk in front. 

“Uh… kids got stolen- taken in, I mean, and they… got shocked with stuff and trained to…. to be…” Friedkin was gesturing all around the air before him, appearing frustrated. “It’s right on the tip of my tongue. Oh, yeah. Assassins.”

Riggins sighed deeply. “I know all of that already. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Friedkin swallowed loud enough to be audible. “I only know things that you know, though,” he said nervously. 

“Friedkin, what aren’t you saying?” shouted Riggins, glancing around the hallway afterwards and seeing if anyone was looking their way. He hadn’t meant to get that worked up, and he hoped that it wasn’t attracting any attention. If there was one thing he couldn’t afford to display in front of fellow agents, it was a loss of control.

“Maybe you should talk to the General about stuff like this.” Friedkin shrugged. “I- I’m just a guy trying to do my job. She actually knows what’s going on.”

“Do not bullshit me on this.” Riggins’ tone dropped dangerously low, letting Friedkin know that he was done messing around. 

Friedkin cleared his throat. “Okay.” His voice took on an excited element, like he was revealing a good grade to a parent. “So, I may have gotten a promotion.”

“A what?” Riggins shook his head. This wasn’t adding up at all. 

“It’s great, right? I have all the money and guys to do literally whatever I want!” He was ecstatic, eyebrows raised, a silly grin on his face. “I can write plans that I want to do in emails and send them to the first name that shows up in the little suggested box and they’ll still get done! I mean, I don’t even have to know the guy I sent it to!”

Riggins felt like his heart had skipped a beat. Information was practically pouring out of Friedkin, and all of it was absolutely terrifying. 

“I have all these cool new cars with armor and stuff and guns in them, and I can just take them,” Friedkin threw his arms wide, “wherever I want! And- wait. I told you too much, didn’t I.” He sighed, like this was a mistake he’d made before. “See, that was the one thing I wasn’t supposed to do. Can you believe this? This is so classic me.” He rubbed his head with a hand, which was gloved. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know what to do now.” 

There was silence for a while, Riggins slowly processing what he’d heard. Friedkin had been given his job. Impossible. Project Marzanna had told him the truth. Even more impossible. 

Friedkin clapped. “Hey, I got it. Why don’t you give me an order, for old time’s sake, just like we used to do, and I’ll have someone do it, because I have, like, all the resources now, and you forget this ever happened. Deal?”

“Deal,” Riggins said immediately, harboring of course no intention to forget what Friedkin told him, and in fact planning to act upon it as soon as he could. But he could use all the things that had been put at Friedkin’s disposal to follow through on a promise he’d made. To bring in Marzanna. “Here’s my order. Five days from now, you need to go collect project Marzanna. She’s an agent who’s living in Seattle. She expects to be recalled, I warned her ahead of time. Go in there with all your trucks and guns and get her and bring her back in.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you could, like, text it to me also? Not that I’m going to forget, I just like to have it in my brain and in my phone. Like, both places.”

“Fine. Dismissed.”

“Yes, si- yes, pal.”


End file.
